The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory

For youth organizations, the concept of peer-to-peer campaigning is nothing new. The Young Democrats of America have used peer-to-peer as the core of their campaigns for years, and organizations like the Bus Project have been innovating in the field with such methods. The Obama campaign embraced peer-to-peer as the most effective way to get voters to show up to the polls, especially new and infrequent voters. As Plouffe says, “the best way to get new people to caucuses and polls was to have a family member, friend, or neighbor ask them to go.”

Peer-to-peer served multiple purposes for the Obama campaign: turnout and GOTV, list-building, and persuasion. Using peer-to-peer to build strong organizations in the states was elevated in the Obama campaign more than in presidential campaigns in the past:

This time I believed that our state campaigns should be the driving factor. Registering voters, person-to-person persuasion, building strong local organizations, boosting turnout where we needed to, and gathering as big an e-mail list as possible would be more important than advertising to our ultimate success. It is much more effective to throw late-stage surplus funds on TV than to field operations, which need time and infrastructure to grow.

Peer-to-peer grows organically, and as such it takes time to coalesce into an effective state or local organization. Friends, family, and neighbors recruit friends, family, and neighbors, who in turn reach out to their own networks. Young voters talk to and organize other young voters at the places where they live and hang out. The Obama campaigns state organizations were built on person-to-person outreach and trust, which made them very strong and cohesive as they grew.

Trust and similarity make for effective organizers:

We believed local people talking to their neighbors, friends, and family, to address these doubts, could create a permission structure whereby voters rationalized, ‘Well, you’re supporting him enthusiastically . We think alike, live the same types of lives. You see something in him, and that’s important to me.’

The campaign’s message is much more convincing when delivered by a trusted person or someone who seems to be in a similar place in life. They Obama campaign took advantage of this by making sure every supporter was equipped with the right message:

Through e-mailed talking points, postings on the website, and conversations with local field organizers, our volunteers were stressing the same arguments Obama, Biden, Ax, and Gibbs were delivering on any given day. Our philosophy was that John from Durango needed to be as current on the campaign as the candidate was. We wanted to build a message-delivery army in perfect harmony from top to bottom.

Because this organizing was being done by volunteers and supporters, and these supporters were encouraged to be unyielding in their efforts, they were able to focus on non-traditional voters and not solely a traditional campaign universe:

Our supporters’ involvement couldn’t end at making calls or knocking on doors from preapproved lists; they had to approach everyone they could, no matter their electoral history, and make a personal case for why their targets should support Obama. It was the surest way to expand the electorate in our favor.

The Obama campaign proved to many doubters what youth organizers have been saying for years: peer-to-peer wins elections.

Check out the other posts in this series:
Young Voters in The Audacity to Win
Technology in The Audacity to Win

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The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory

“Technology played a key role in our success. Reaching an audience involves more than just figuring out who your audience is; it also means knowing how to find them. Part of the reason our campaign was so successful is that we were able to identify early that many of the people we wanted to reach were spending more of their time on the Internet. We realized that a smart, and large, Internet presence was the best way to provide people with the opportunity and the tools to get involved in the campaign–they were already immersed in the world of technology and would be more likely to encounter us there. We met people where they lived, instead of forcing them to deviate from their habits or lifestyle to seek us out. Our early commitment to a digitally based platform paid huge dividends.” – David Plouffe

The Obama campaign utilized technology and the internet more effectively than any campaign in history. Throughout The Audacity to Win David Plouffe reveals how and why they were so successful.

Online Advertising

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the role of young voters in the campaign, they used specifically targeted online advertising to reach young voters and other underrepresented demographics to promote information about how to caucus or vote early.

There was a strong long-tail effect with the efficacy of their online ad spending:

Our return on Internet advertising was unbelievable. Each dollar invested in list growth returned several times that–immediately. Over time, as these new recruits game more money (and time), the return grew even greater. This result was highly unusual. Customarily, organizations are paying several dollars just to get someone to sign up on their list, only to see many people decline to take the next step of involvement, like contributing.

The ability to micro-target ads for certain demographics or specific online searches, combined with a pay-per-click structure, made online advertising a much higher return on investment than traditional pay-per-spot blanket advertising. In addition, the online advertising was trackable and provided valuable metrics.

Text Messaging

The most impressive decision in terms of mobile that the campaign made was to announce Biden as the Vice-Presidential candidate via text to build their list of mobile numbers:

The idea appealed to me on two levels. First, it was consistent with other key junctures in the campaign–reporting fund-raising numbers, the decision to limit our primary debates, opting out of the public funding system–where we had communicated first directly to our supporters. This was their campaign as much as ours, and they deserved to get a heads-up from us about important decisions. Those previous announcements had all been made by e-mail or Web postings; this would be our first large-scale text-only notification. Second, this was a great way to grow our text-messaging list. Rospars was right about the increasing gap in our contact figures: our e-mail list was now over 6 million, but our list of mobile numbers was in the low six figures. Making a big announcement by text would ignite a spark and juice the latter number.

It sure did. By August 22, the night before we announced Biden, over 2 million people had signed up to receive the VP announcement by text. Our first communication announcing the ‘Be the First to Know’ campaign had happened on August 10. In less than two weeks, we had grown our list over fifteen-fold.

Mobile is often under-utilized or ignored by campaigns. The commitment to the platform that led to the Biden announcement decision paid off. With 2 million people on the mobile list the campaign could send rapid response texts, vote reminders, and event invitations through a medium with an extremely high open rate.

Online Fundraising

The Obama campaign made history with their online fundraising success. One reason they were so successful is that they showed a genuine appreciation and respect for low-dollar online fundraisers:

In our campaign, grassroots supporters started to raise money. Generally, they brought in relatively small amounts–$100, $500, $1,000–using a tool on our social-networking site to keep track of the money they raised and to ask others to contribute.

Over time this grew into a powerful force. We treated these citizen fundraisers as no less important than our larger raisers. They were asked to join conference calls with Barack, me, and other senior staff so we could thank them for what they were doing and give them updates on the campaign. They believed their effort was valued–and it was–so they dug deeper and kept raising. This was not a tactical relationship. It was authentic. And that authenticity became a very powerful driver in the connection between Barack Obama and his supporters.

The campaign also realized that these initial low-dollar donors were in for the long haul. They “believed that making a financial contribution would lead people to feel more invested in the campaign and could result in higher degrees of activism” and if they could ensure these donors “felt part of and connected to the whole campaign, they might be more generous over time.”

E-mail

The Obama campaign had a massive e-mail operation, and because of this and their commitment to metrics and research they were able to learn a lot about their techniques and what supporters wanted.

We also learned a lot about the regular e-mail messages we were sending out. People wanted information, and a lot of it. We could send more e-mail than we originally thought advisable, which spoke to the heightened interest in the race and the commitment of our supporters. To keep things fresh, we varied the length and tone of the messages–some were long and informative, others quite short and informal. Perhaps most important, we learned that people responded very well to e-mails from Michelle Obama and that we needed to use Barack somewhat sparingly–when he signed an e-mail it always produced by far the biggest response, but we did not want this to become a stale event. So many of the e-mails came from me, though when we needed a big response to an ask–for money, volunteer time, or to watch an event–we made sure the e-mails came from the Obamas.

It is important to note how many variables the campaign looked at when making decisions about e-mail. They consciously saved their big guns for the most important messages as opposed to having every e-mail come from the Obamas. The variety of the messages help decrease the feeling that supporters are receiving standard list blasts. They also made an effort “to include a lot more videos in our e-mail communications–the data suggested that supporters spent more time with these e-mails than with the text-only versions.” By constantly tracking what was and wasn’t working in their e-mail messaging they were able to keep improving their game over the long campaign.

The campaign also learned that using e-mail to share campaign strategy with supporters helped strengthen the sense of purpose and discipline with supporters:

What we found when we researched things a bit more was that we were not doing enough internal communication to ensure that our supporters, and even staff, knew exactly what our strategy was and how their efforts fit into the puzzle.

This internal communication allowed everyone that was involved in the campaign to be on message and as effective as possible when talking to friends, neighbors, and other potential voters:

Through e-mailed talking points, postings on the website, and conversations with local field organizers, our volunteers were stressing the same arguments Obama, Biden, Ax, and Gibbs were delivering on any given day. Our philosophy was that John from Durango needed to be as current on the campaign as the candidate was. We wanted to build a message-delivery army in perfect harmony from top to bottom.

Online Video and Live-Streaming

Online video has become a game-changer in politics, and the Obama campaign’s understanding of the importance of the medium and willingness to experiment allowed them to consistently bypass the media filter and go directly to supporters.

As was the case throughout the campaign, most people did not watch the speech on TV. It was delivered on a Tuesday morning, when just about everyone was at work. Instead, people watched it online, most of them on YouTube, either as it was happening or at their leisure later that day or in the days to come. Eventually, tens of millions of voters saw the speech through various outlets.

This marked a fundamental change in political coverage and message consumption, and one that will only continue as technology rolls forward: big moments, political or otherwise, will no longer be remembered by people as times when everyone gathered around TVs to watch a speech, press conference, or other event. Increasingly, most of us will recall firing up the computer, searching for a video, and watching it at home or at the office–or even on cell phones.

The campaign used live-streaming both to give supporters the opportunity to see events live from across the country and to turn the campaign website into a “real ‘home’ for our supporters and a one-stop shopping place for anything campaign related.”

An interesting lesson the campaign learned was the importance of authenticity in online video. After putting out a video with webcam picture quality, they “tried the next one with better lighting and an actual high-definition camera. The results looked much more produced. Our supporters hated it. They thought it seemed inauthentic, staged, and less personal.” By being authentic, transparent, and honest with supporters in their videos, they were able to get great results:

This was not a mere tactic to get more money or volunteer time. It was what we believed. This video message was one of the most effective ones we sent; the response factors we could measure–contributions, spike in volunteer hours–unmistakably bore this out, but we also received a lot of anecdotal feedback from our staff in the states and in conversations our supporters were having with Chris Hughes’s online organizing team. People felt like they were being leveled with, that we were explaining clearly how their time and money was being utilized. And they felt that we valued and needed them.

List-Building and Events

The Obama campaign viewed every event as a list-building opportunity. This gave the campaign a huge advantage because of the size of the crowds that Obama was able to draw. By having people RSVP for events ahead of time and checking in at the event they built their list and were able to trace people back to the voter file. Of course, this opportunity only presented itself at their own events:

So while candidates were thrilled to have a big audience to speak to at an existing event, we were more interested in building events that would feed into our specific voter targets and that included trying to attract a lot of people who do not like to pay to go to a political event.

The campaign chose to put the additional work in to create their own events instead of taking the easy way out by attending existing fundraising dinners and state party events. By holding events in areas where a lot of unactivated potential Obama supporters could attend, many times in locations that were not used to seeing candidates personally, the campaign was able to sign up new voters and further expand the electorate.

Supporters were told “that nothing was more important than getting additional people signed up on the site so we could communicate with them and try to convert them to donors and volunteers.” The list was able to grow organically as supporters, through peer-to-peer contact, recruited new supporters who then did the same.

The Role of Technology in Staff

Plouffe’s view of the role of ‘new media’ within the campaign structure really resonated with me:

The new media group (online communications, Web-page development and maintenance, texting) in most campaigns reports to the communications department, and its department head is not considered an equal of other senior staff. But I saw how important the burgeoning online world was to our overall success; new media would touch just about every aspect of our campaign. So I had that department report directly to me.

Having been the person in that role in the past, his take on it is 100% accurate. I also agree with his following prediction: “I assume in future campaigns this department will be called digital strategy, not new media–it’s not new anymore and it’s not just media.”

As we have seen technology played a integral role in the campaign at every level of organization and strategy. Both internal and external communication, list-building, field and voter contact, GOTV, finance; all these areas were bolstered by the effective use of technology.

Also check out Learning from Obama: Lessons for Online Communicators in 2009 and Beyond by Colin Delany.

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The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory

Those of us in the progressive youth movement have been talking about the importance of young voter outreach for a long time now. We tried to drive home the point that young voters are not apathetic, but disengaged due to that self-fulfilling prophecy of traditional campaign ‘wisdom.’ Youth political organizations kept succeeding, increasing youth turnout in 2004 and 2006. David Plouffe, David Axelrod, and Barack Obama eschewed tradition by deciding from the beginning that organizing young voters to expand the electorate would be the key to victory.

“One of [Paul] Tewes’s ideas was to make sure we were working every community, no matter how small. African American, Latino, high school kids, Republicans–we had staff assigned to all of the demographics, months ahead of our competition.” The Obama campaign began by working hard to turn out the potential voters that traditional campaigns write off. While critics of the youth vote claim that 2008 was a fluke and just about Obama, it is clear that the campaign worked hard to organize youth that had never been asked for their vote by a campaign. The campaign knew that they “would win Iowa only on the backs of independents, Republicans, young voters, and new registrants–a scary proposition, to say the least.”

The campaign was able to look at the election through the lens of a young voter. “At least 95 percent of our six thousand employees were under the age of thirty, most under the age of twenty-five.” While it is not uncommon for a lot of campaign staff to be young, what was exceptional about the Obama campaign was the respect for them and the willingness to trust their instincts on what was happening on the ground.

We adjusted accordingly, adding more media and Internet advertising geared exclusively to younger voters; we prepared to do a lot more instructional and informative work with our supporters so they knew how to caucus, while trying not to spook them; and we redoubled our efforts to attract support from conventional caucus Democrats so our newbies in certain precincts were matched with some grizzled veterans.

The campaign invested in “advertising specifically geared toward women, seniors, and younger voters, African Americans and Latinos.” The messaging of the youth advertising reflected an understanding of the generation: “spots for those under thirty were very aspirational, a call to action, focusing on issues like Iraq and the environment, and calling on younger voters to get involved in shaping the future.” Young voters, used to being ignored, were finally being engaged by a campaign with the same effort and respect showed to seniors.

The Obama campaign conceived of and executed a strategy to expand the electorate by registering and turning out young voters and other traditionally underrepresented demographics. Here are a few passages from The Audacity to Win on how this strategy became a winning one:

As the returns came in we could see the traces of our strategy’s design: by registering over one hundred thousand new voters, producing strong turnout among African Americans and young voters, and winning college-educated whites thanks to our stand against the gas tax, we had made ourselves unbeatable in North Carolina.

We registered many thousands of new voters in both states, and these voters participated at high rates, defying the conventional view that new registrants turn out in very low numbers. A strong showing from African Americans and younger voters might put both these states in play in the general election.

If we did not register enough African Americans and young voters in North Carolina and then turn them out on Election Day, we could not win. Facing a traditional electorate meant we shouldn’t even bother with a state like North Carolina, no matter how much money we spent.

By focusing their attention on young voters and actually spending resources on research, the campaign learned new things about new and young voters. An example was when their numbers showed that they were not meeting their initial goals for youth early voting:

First, many young voters were so excited by this election that they couldn’t envision doing anything besides voting for Barack Obama in person at the polling location. When we raised with them the possibility of long lines, or the potential to free themselves up to volunteer, they simply wouldn’t budge. This was a big moment for them and they felt it would seem bigger if they voted at the polls. In any case, they were still dead-set on participating, which relieved us.

The second lesson was that there was still some confusion about who was eligible to vote early and how it worked. Armed with these findings, we made sure our communications to younger voters included even more remedial information about the nuts and bolts of early voting. Soon enough, their numbers began to climb. In many states we lowered our expectations for the under-twenty-five early vote (but not for overall turnout), and we eventually hit those numbers in most battlegrounds.

Republicans have spent a lot of effort in previous campaigns spreading misinformation to young voters about such things as early voting, residency, and registration. By putting in the effort to combat that misinformation, the campaign was able to empower and turn out voters who were unsure of the sometimes complex election laws.

As we now know, this strategy of reaching out to young voters paid off, despite the naysayers from the media and the old school political establishment:

Our base–African Americans, sporadic-voting Democrats, and younger voters–was turning out in larger numbers than McCain’s base in most states.

The share of the electorate over sixty-five actually dropped between 2004 and 2008, not because fewer older voters turned out but because younger ones showed up in droves.

Because the Obama campaign was committed to putting effort and resources in registering and turning out young voters, treating them with the same respect as other demographics, they were able to build on the work done by youth organizations since 2000 to culminate with those voters carrying Obama to victory and the presidency. However, culminate may not be the appropriate word. The work in further expanding the electorate by turning out young voters to elect Democrats is far from over. There is more potential for the Millennial generation to not only expand the electorate in an election, but to fundamentally alter the country for the better.

I’ll leave you with David Plouffe’s words on our generation:

I left the campaign extraordinarily confident about the future of the country, because of the talent and drive of the young men and women who made our victory possible. Certainly, we would not have won the primary or the general without a surging youth turnout in any number of states, Iowa most importantly. But their impact on the election goes beyond casting ballots. Most of our staff was under thirty, many of them were under twenty-five, as were a sizable chunk of our most active volunteers. As I witnessed, sometimes in awe, their performance and desire to look beyond themselves and contribute to a better world (and they have a distinctly global outlook) it gave me extreme comfort to know that in the not so distant future they will be taking the reins and leading our companies, campaigns, and institutions. For my generation, the rocking chair beckons–these kids are that good. I can’t wait to experience their leadership and vision in the years to come.

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One more day.

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There is only a month left of this election cycle, and it is that time for all of us to put everything we can into it. My former boss used to tell us a month out from an election that you can do anything for 30 days. You can handle a month of working your ass off for the future of this country. Here is a list of 10 things you can do to help elect Democrats across the board.

1. Bring registration forms, vote pledge forms, sign-up sheets, or campaign information with you wherever you go. When you go to happy hour with your friends, talk to some people you don’t know and encourage them to sign-up. Go to events and do it. If you are in college, talk to people on campus. Remember to look up the registration deadlines in your state so you don’t keep registering people after the deadline.
2. Use my.barackobama.com to call or go to the doors of voters. The entire system is run online and you can make calls from the comfort of your home whenever you have a few minutes of time to spare.
3. Volunteer for a local campaign. We need to elect Democrats up and down the ballot. Find a local Democratic candidate and help.
4. Talk to your friends about the election. Make sure they are registered and planning to vote.
5. Offer to drive your friends to the polls. Whether it is for early voting or on election day, make sure that your friends who may not have cars can get to the polls to vote.
6. Use your online social networks to get out the vote. Send Facebook messages, write on your friends’ walls, tag them in notes, whatever it takes to get them to vote.
7. Vote early or by mail if you can. This way you will be able to help on election day and you won’t have to worry about something happening that will prevent you from voting.
8. Write letters to editors. Talk about why it is important to elect Democrats and see if your local papers will publish them.
9. Record a video about why you are voting Democrat. Then share it with your friends and post it online.
10. Donate to Democrats or ask your friends and family to donate. Make sure your Democratic candidates have the resources they need to execute their GOTV programs.

There are a lot of ways that you can help. Just make sure that on November 5th you can look back and feel confident that you did everything you could to win this election.

How are you helping in the last month? Share in the comments.

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So this is the web video that the McCain campaign put out 15 seconds after the debate ended. It attacks Barack Obama for saying John McCain is right. Here is why I think it is stupid.

First, the video makes it look like that by virtue of agreeing with John McCain on something you aren’t ready to lead. Agreeing with John McCain on a lot of things certainly implies questionable judgment, yet I don’t think that was the message they were going for.

Second, it’s misleading. Every time Obama said he agreed with McCain on something, he followed up with how he disagreed with McCain on the big picture or the way to address the problem. It’s like someone saying “America needs to be energy independent” and another saying “I agree that we need to be energy independent, but your plan isn’t the right way to get there.”

Third, it attacks the concept of bi-partisan cooperation. If anything Obama is showing where there is some common ground, which would be the basis of coming to consensus across party lines to find solutions to America’s challenges. This ad shows that when it comes to working across party lines, McCain is all talk. This is why the members of the two parties rarely work together. As soon as they do it becomes fodder for political attacks.

Here is a video created by the Huffington Post that shows Obama calling McCain out when he was dead wrong, and this poor judgment has cost our country dearly.

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Here are some screenshots from the online polls from a number of sites asking the question “who won tonight’s debate.”

Chicago Tribune

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Michigan Live

Politico

CNN

Rocky Mountain News

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My name is Heather Brown and I am the President of Young Democrats of Nevada.

This year we are making history all over the country, students are mobilized and energized and want to make the difference this year!!!

We are working with College Democrats of America to do two separate invasions into Nevada on October 3rd-5th.

We are inviting all of our surrounding states to come into Nevada to come to either Northern Nevada (Reno Area) or Southern Nevada (Las Vegas Area).

Nevada is an important state this year!! We have a real opportunity to turn Nevada Blue in the Presidential race and to also add two Democrats to the House of Representatives.

Invasion Dates:
Friday October 3rd – Sunday October 5th

Travel:
We will be providing transportation for everyone who wants to make a difference!!

Housing:
We will be providing Housing for every student.

We are going to make history in so many ways this year, and with your help we are going to WIN this November.

Please send out this information to all of your members. This is an open invitation to all you are interested.

Feel free to contact me with any questions that you might have.
Email: brownh@collegedems.com

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The videos below are from an interview with Barack Obama on Connie Martinson Talks Books from 1995. They are discussing his then-new book Dreams from My Father. This interview should go a long way in disproving those people that doubt Obama’s authenticity. h/t to Donklephant.

Part 1

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