(Australia) Rudd recruits Team Obama trio to take on Abbott

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Kevin Rudd has called in the big guns for the looming election fight, importing three political heavyweights from Barack Obama's successful 2008 and 2012 election campaigns to help him defeat Tony Abbott.

With election speculation now at fever pitch and an announcement expected within days, the ALP's Melbourne-headquartered campaign team has secured the expertise of Tom McMahon, the former executive director of the powerful Democratic National Committee during President Obama's last campaign, Joon Kim of the consulting firm New Partners, and the British social media expert Matthew McGregor - described in the US as ''Barack Obama's digital attack dog''

All three men played pivotal roles in last year's campaign when the Democratic Party out-boxed the Republicans using ever-more sophisticated social media and comprehensive field operations to see off what initially looked like a strong challenge from the popular and well-funded Mitt Romney.

Political insiders cite the Obama campaigns as the gold standard in how to get the vote out - critical in the US where voting is voluntary only - and particularly in how to motivate and energise young voters.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/rudd-recruits-team-obama-trio-to-take-on-abbott-20130730-2qxf8.html#ixzz2ahponGHC

I get that the online campaign was good, but did it really make a difference when it came to the outcome in the US? Australia slipping into the hands of Neanderthal union-hating, women-hating wankers like Abbott is something that's likely to happen even though the polling's shown Rudd's popularity is closing the gap, and if proven winners like an online campaign team like this can carry Rudd over the team, I'm totally behind them..

[Maximumnegro]

1. Read The Center Holds

and you will understand how pivotal the 'digital' team was. In fact they took up a massive amount of the campaign budget. And yes the online contributions were extremely important. Don't forget the insane amount anaylsis that went into every facet of the online presence, all the way down to focus testing the opening lines of emails.

[cali]

2. He was also exec director of Dean's Democracy for America

prior to going to the DNC with Dean and one of the architects of the '50 state strategy' that was so effective.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Are they the ones who wrote the promises too ?

Obama Promises, Including Whistleblower Protections, Disappear From Website http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/obama-whistleblower-website_n_3658815.html

but find them here : http://web.archive.org/web/20130425082834/http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

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5. I have no idea, but that page is still there...

http://change.gov/agenda/ethics_agenda/

[dipsydoodle]

6. Then its been put back

There's no doubt it had previously been removed. Probably an egg on face job after Huffpo published their article and included the archive link.

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Uh, okay. It's clearly Crime of the Century material...

I work on a government website and I'd enjoy hearing some of the theories for why some of our pages get removed/edited/shuffled around/merged with other pages. They probably make far more entertaining reading than the very boring truth

[Number23]

4. I love that picture.