Academic ‘Dream Team’ Helped Obama’s Effort
As #SarcasticRover might say "Democrats really know how to do a science."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/health/dream-team-of-behavioral-scientists-advised-obama-campaign.html?_r=0
Less well known is that the Obama campaign also had a panel of unpaid academic advisers. The group which calls itself the consortium of behavioral scientists, or COBS provided ideas on how to counter false rumors, like one that President Obama is a Muslim. It suggested how to characterize the Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in advertisements. It also delivered research-based advice on how to mobilize voters.
In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other, said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvards Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. Its a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.
When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago, said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.
For their part, consortium members said they did nothing more than pass on research-based ideas, in e-mails and conference calls. They said they could talk only in general terms about the research, because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign.