10/14/08: Obama plays a team game

Yesterday, I talked about McCain’s erratic and dysfunctional campaign that appears to have no focus or local organization of the sort seen even in the Bush campaigns of the last 2 elections. Today I wanted to contrast that with Obama’s grass-roots, heavily wired, get-out-the-vote, well-staffed and unified campaign that has resulted in a daunting October lead, in both electoral and popular votes. And to find the article that sums it up best I had to go across the pond – it’s from the Guardian of London, UK! I love the sports analogy in this article:
Presidential candidates can jump
While McCain treats his campaign as a high-stakes poker game, Obama maintains his cool in a prolonged game of basketball
This article in the Washington Post provides an in-depth analysis of Obama's campaign, based on local volunteers who pitch to their own neighbors, micro-targeting techniques to identify persuadable independents and Republicans using consumer data, and a focus on exurban and rural areas.
The campaign has used its record-breaking fundraising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers.
In fact, the WP says that Obama’s campaign is built from the ground up compared to that of rival Sen. John McCain, whose emphasis on ground operations has been less intensive and clinical than that of his Republican predecessor(s). Further, Obama has effectively used the web in his campaign says this article from his primary days - that seem so far away now! From controlling the canvassing operations to corralling e-mail lists, organizing meetings and overseeing national phone drives, Obama's web network is the most ambitious, and apparently successful, internet campaign effort in any presidential race in the web's short history.
Part of the success is due to incredible talent that Obama has surrounded himself with, starting with the Clintons, who are setting new records in hosting events for a primary opponent, but also the many advisers and managers, several of which had worked for Bill Clinton. But the key to it all is Obama himself, who has been tireless in his efforts - and this article says it better than I ever could.
Obama Knocking On Doors Again by sweetliberty Sun Oct 12, 2008
Obama is a leader who leads by example. He is not afraid of grass-roots participation as demonstrated today.

The Obama campaign plane, with "Change We Can Believe In" on the fuselage and the Obama logo emblazoned on the tail, landed at 2:50 p.m. at Toledo Express Airport. On hand were Lucas County sheriff’s deputies and Ohio state troopers, as well as campaign and airport staff, and media.

After leaving Toledo Express, the Obama motorcade went to a neighborhood in Holland, off McCord Road. Mr. Obama then began knocking on doors and talking to residents

• http://toledoblade.com/...

Sue Sekel, a 43-year old healthcare worker dressed for a day of Sunday housecleaning, opened her front door to discover Obama standing before her.

He asked her what she did for a living and how she was managing in the economic downturn. Sekel said she was doing fine and that she voted early.

Later, she declined to tell reporters who she voted for, but she said, "I told him what I did." She also said Sunday was "the one day I come home to clean ceiling fans and look like crap, and then this happens."

Obama never stops being a dad.

As word spread that Obama was in the neighborhood, a few dozen people gathered across the street to watch, as three teenage girls raced across the street in bare feet and socks, armed with cameras.

"Where are your shoes?" Obama asked them, before taking photos with them and crossing the street. There he shook hands with about a dozen neighbors, asking them what they did for a living and offering words of concern.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/...

The organization Obama has built is just short of miraculous. Never in the history of Presidential politics has anyone built the type of ground organization as the Obama campaign. Thousands of participants across the country have taken part in the campaign's push to victory.

In many states, a final statewide training session was held last week for Obama field organizers, to be followed by get-out-the-vote training for team leaders. In Missouri, about 400 neighborhood teams are set up around the state, each with a goal of getting about 4,000 votes in their area. The hope, said Missouri director Buffy Wicks, is as get-out-the-vote efforts intensify in the campaign's final weeks, the teams will have established themselves enough to deliver the backing that Obama will need.

And, Obama has been as close to the ground game as any Presidential contender can get.

At a training session in Ohio that Obama attended Friday night, the candidate wondered just how much of a strength all the campaign's efforts would prove to be.

"We've been designing and we've been engineering and we've been at the drawing board and we've been tinkering," he said. "Now it's time to just take it for a drive. Let's see how this baby runs."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I am just astonished by Obama. He has been working so hard to bring us to victory that one can feel nothing but pride being a part of it all.