Obama team's 50-state strategy builds on Howard Dean, Bush campaign, and Harold Ickes

[DeepModem Mom]

See Beyond Geography's post of NYT, Obama’s War Chest Drives a 50-State Strategy:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6394905

Beyond the "War Chest" of money, the article points out that the Obama campaign builds on the work of Howard Dean -- and both the Bush campaign, and Harold Ickes:

"The campaign is in many ways building on a strategy championed by Howard Dean, the party chairman who has been pressing Democrats to build a presence in all states rather than focus primarily on battlegrounds....

***

(Virginia Democrat Abbi Easter) said she was...expecting help from as many as 100 of the 3,600 “Obama Organizing Fellows,” a group of full-time volunteers fanning out across the country to oversee local registration efforts. The mobilization is being helped along by Mr. Obama’s robust Internet operation specializing in reaching out to the younger voters who use social networking sites like FaceBook.

But (Obama campaign manager David) Plouffe said the volunteer program was modeled after the one Mr. Bush’s aides devised in 2004, which sent supporters door to door to spread the word about Mr. Bush in their own neighborhoods — a personal touch informed by detailed lists of neighbors’ occupations, voting histories, pet causes and hobbies.

Four years ago, Democrats and their liberal allies scrambled to match the vast lists of personal voter information gathered by the Republicans through public records and consumer data banks. The Democratic National Committee has since greatly improved its voter information file, which is now at Mr. Obama’s disposal. But Mr. Obama’s aides were also considering buying another huge list with information on 230 million Americans. The list is owned by Catalist, a private concern co-founded by a longtime Democratic operative, Harold M. Ickes.

In an interview, Mr. Ickes said that Mr. Obama’s campaign aides are particularly interested in new information his company has gathered about cable television viewing habits. Obama campaign officials said that is because they are considering a specially tailored commercial campaign on niche cable networks like MTV, with its young audience, or BET, with an African-American viewership Mr. Obama’s aides consider crucial for victory.

“It’s a great opportunity to get people information that may be particularly germane to them,” David Axelrod, the campaign’s chief strategist said of the specialty cable commercials, first perfected by Mr. Bush in 2004. Yet Mr. Obama’s team has looked into advertising in as many as 25 states and has made clear its openness to running ads on the broadcast television networks....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/us/politics/22obama.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

[loyalsister]

1. In some ways it's the Dean campaign with the right candidate

Dean was a good candidate but, of course has nowhere near the charisma, eloquence, looks, etc... that Obama has.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. The right candidate -- you're right! And then I love that they're using all of these...

ideas, resources, tactics, etc., to maximize that great candidate's chances to soar. It's very exciting to see Dems operating a campaign on this level.

[blm]

5. The biggest difference is a DNC that did its job for 4 years in EVERY STATE so ANY Dem nominee

and downticket candidate and Dem voter can GET their votes allowed, cast and counted.

Building state party infrastructure takes at least 4 yrs to build, especially in those states left to collapse by the previous chairs.

There is no way possible an Obama candidacy could have survived the primaries if the DNC in 2005 had continued to operate under Clinton era directions.

[loyalsister]

6. In some state maybe

In others. Like mine the problem was that the pres. campaign came in and took over an existing local structure that may not have been perfect, but at least belonged to us.
The top down model was the problem.
And Kerry had an uphill battle in MO from a cultural standpoint. It's not his fault. People just did not respond to him.
I heard my dad (who was teetering towards Democrats because of the war), say he just did not understand what he was talking about. And he was annoyed with the comment about who winds up going to fight the wars that was misunderstood. Since he was allegedly one of those guys during the Vietnam era according to Fox news and it was not obvious what Kerry said he was offended.

Kerry would be a great pres. candidate if the majority of the electorate were college educated. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

Obama's has strength in speaking in a way that is accessible to massive numbers of people. People are not walking away confused. With the exception of a couple of gaffs, there is has not been constant media debate of the meaning of what he says.
And people are finally responding with excitment!

[blm]

7. I think you don't understand that infrastructure gets tapped INTO by the candidate

AS IT EXISTS. The nominee goes into the states in June of THAT YEAR and taps into the structure that has been BUILT over the last 4 years. If there is no strong Dem presence at state and county levels where the votes are allowed, cast and counted that means the GOP has a clear field to dominate the outcome.

[loyalsister]

9. And yet

in 2004 in Missouri in my city the national dem party came in in June and took over and made a mess out of our usually small but well oiled machine. There were complaints abound and most of the seasoned and best volunteers quit. Thus the infrastructure was destroyed. That's what happens very often in the top down model as opposed to the bottom up model where the original infrastucture is allowed to grow with some additional nurturing. In midwestern and southern states going in and changing and replacing the way top down campaigns do, fails every time.

They put in a phone banking procedure that was different from the one the central committee had used when they got together to help with local races. Then, they had a bunch of people who could not relate to the region who called people too late and spoke to them in ways that were largely interpreted as condescending.
The word got out that the people from the Kerry campaign were "snobs" so they did not have the pull to recruit more volunteers from the area.

[quaker bill]

10. Dean was

the right candidate in 2004 in pretty much the same way that Obama is the right candidate in 2008. It just took losing in 2004 for us to become prepared to hear the message. No doubt, Barack has a more effective style of delivering it, but all things being equal, in 2004 we would have picked Kerry anyway.

In fact, if we had been in the same place this year that we were in at the beginning of 2004, Hillary would have taken the nomination in a landslide. 2004 was all about experience, strength, resume, and "electability". I am glad we have broadened our horizons.

[loyalsister]

11. Good points

I just see how people like my mother (who voted for Bush in order to save unborn babies) get practically dreamy eyed over Obama, and think that this candidate is hitting ELVIS on the charisma meter. After listening to him, she said "Well, he gives a good speech, but I want to hear how he's going to make this all happen and what his plans are." So, I directed her to his web site and have been keeping he updated. And, she is a convert.
Where Dean was a good candidate who could draw in crowds who were already "churchgoers."
I don't think he would have convinced my mother. He never got her attention during that primary. Not even when he screamed.

[MaineDem]

2. The Clinton campaign used Catalist during the Primaries

Access to Catalist would give the Obama campaign - and the 50 states - access to any information Catalist added to their voter file.

The DNC and the states are using another system and access to both files would be very informative to the campaigns going into the General.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. As I said in post 3, it's great to see Dems campaigning at this level. For so long...

the GOP "ate our lunch" -- or, I guess now we should say with Daniel Day-Lewis, "drank our milkshake."

[madfloridian]

8. And will profit Ickes greatly, I imagine.

[MaineDem]

12. I would assume so.

Unfortunately.

[democrattotheend]

13. I didn't know Ickes was the brains behind Catalist

Guess he's good for something. I don't know how the progressive community could function without then...they make it possible for member organizations to match their member data to voter files, which is an invaluable service.