Archived: Call to Action: Obama Analysis on Winning

Intro: In addition to many of the speeches, Eric and I attended a small strategy session with David Plouffe (campaign manager), Penny Pritzker (fundraising chair), Howard Dean, Phil Murphy (finance chair of the DNC), Paul Tewes (now head of DNC, but formerly ran and won Iowa for Obama. I have the slides he presented and want to share them with people who will truly care and consider making an investment.  They help provide, as Plouffe describes it “cautious optimism”.   Below are some of my notes from it (done before I had the slides available to me).

 

Synthesis: I’ve never heard/seen a business so specific and in command of its targeted marketing, strategy and tactics.  It really comes down to a few key strategies:

• 50 state and even all county plan in certain states
  • A great example of the 50 state strategy is Nebraska.  They allocate electors per congressional district, not monolithically.  Therefore, they are targeting the more democratic congressional district.
  • A great example of the county by county strategy is Ohio.  While they know they won’t “win” the rural counties – unlike in the past – they are going there to try to even improve the percentages from something like 24% up to 36%.  With increases like that, we could win Ohio.
• Drive high voter turnout
  • Register voters like crazy
  • Continue to bolster candidate “enthusiasm” (this is a measure of how enthusiastic votes are for a candidate)
• Ensure that monkey business doesn’t happen at the polls
  • The DNC has been working on this since 2004 – including working to elect Democratic Secretaries of State in places where there are problems, testing and assessing local election officials.
  • The biggest concern isn’t monkey business – it’s incompetence – especially as/if the polls get inundated.  The average pollworker is around 72 and will be working a 20 hour day. 
  • The Obama campaign is getting together voter protection teams
  • See below around early voting and absentee ballots
• Win hearts & minds – and inoculate against Republican smear machine
  • Of course there’s getting the Obama campaign’s message out – but the key to inoculating against the smear machine is to get people out to early voting and/or absentee ballots.  That way, assuming something will come up in the last 2 weeks, fewer people are swayed.

Key Actionables from what follows:

• Winning is entirely within view and an effective strategy has been very well laid out by the Obama campaign – but will take an unprecedented amount of effort and resources.  We NEED YOU! Call/email me to set up a discussion where I can take you through David Plouffe’s (Obama campaign manager) analysis
• Everyone who can, should be prepared to travel to battleground states.in September and/or October and even November
• Contribute as much money as you humanly can.  How much would you pay to not have this country head further to the right?  How much would you pay for more judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg instead of Alito or Scalia?  Email me about what you can give – with the Obama Victory Fund – you can actually contribute up to $28,500 (and even more with a differently structured giving campaign).  When November 5^th comes, you don’t want to be sitting there wondering, what else you could have done/contributed.
• If you can’t travel, there are many things you can do for the local efforts – but also phone banking and calling into the battleground states.  Contact me and I’ll get you specifically signed up/hooked into these volunteer activities.

 

Detailed notes (also ask me for the slides that have the actual correct figures v. what I heard and had time to scribble down)

• Gov. Dean
  • when talking about McCain Finegold bill on campaign finance reform actually edited it to call it just Finegold, since McCain no longer seems to be upholding it.
  • Taking their 50 state strategy and pushing that into all counties in key states – in Ohio there are 89 counties and in the past, we may have lost rural counties – but we realize that if rural counties go up from 25% to 36% in Ohio – then we win Ohio
  • When Barack wins, you have to respect and ask for everyone’s vote
• Plouffe
  • Ratings for the DNC evenings are greater than any night of the 2004 election.
  • Pays zero attention to the national polls – but uses the state polls as guides
  • By the current calculations from the electoral-based polls: currently:
    • Strong Obama – 168
    • Lean Obama – 32
      • Oregon not currently contested; WA marginally contested; Minn – he’s pulled out of Minn)
      • Maine (and Nebraska) split their electoral votes by congressional district so that – while the campaign may not win either state – they are going to be incisively focused on the key congressional districts they could win since it will be an attempt to get each elector
    • Battleground – 199
      • 4 were won by Kerry in 2004: PA, MI, WI and NH
      • Overall – feeling like voter registration has been strong and that many of these will be about continuing that trend and getting big turnout
      • PA – they have 316K new voter registrations and there are about 60K who switched from Republican – net gain 376 new Democratic veo=ter
      • In some states – like Ohio – he’ll be tied to the end – it’ll come down to turnout
      • For Florida – there are those who think it’s not in reach.  In fact, it is
        • Bush beat Kerry by 383K votes
        • There are 500K African American & 900K Youth voters who are registered and didn’t vote in 2004. 
        • If we can really knock it out of the park for turnout in FL among these groups, we’ll win Florida
    • Lean McCain – 30
      • WV – getting more competitive
      • Nebraska – again – one district may be able to go for Obama and since electors are set by Congressional district – could offer one for Obama. (note – in the airport on our way home – I met a young man who lives in that district and is volunteering for Obama – getting a bunch of traction.
    • More than 10% are still undecided.  These are mostly independents and women.
    • What the press won’t/doesn’t talk about is that the turnout is the biggest deal – and that no polls can/do predict turnout rates.
    • Women – upside potential here is key v. 2004.
      • John Kerry won women by only 3%
      • Clinton 16%
      • Gore 11%
      • Obama is currently polling 14-20% ahead of McCain – but that’s before knowing that McCain is against pay equity (suzi add’l note – and before his selection of right to life, anti-environment, creationist VP)
      • McCain has opposed legislation for equal pay legislation
    • Hispanics
      • were leading by 30-40% in places like Colorado
    • Independents
      • McCain needs to win indies by 4% but is behind currently
      • Swing indie voters chose Obama’s Iraq approach 2:1
    • Biggest and most important statistic overall is enthusiasm for the candidates.  This is the closest predictor of turnout.  Right now
      • For Obama = 52%
      • For McCain – 28%
    • Obama doing better on all but whites with incomes of 50-100K and white evangelicals
    • We won’t win by much – always planned for a close election and have been executing on the same strategy from the beginning
    • They like who the undecideds are and what their key issues are
    • The big offensive will focus on Economy, Choice and Healthcare
    • Believes that McCain is at his high water mark now and has no where to go.  Believes that Obama has significant headroom still.
    • The budget in Florida alone is tens of millions of dollars (they’re running the equivalent of 18 races in that state. 
    • Need to make sure that they have the budget to do the ads that they need at the very end of the race
  • Paul Tewes
    • 50 state strategy – in some states – may only have volunteers, but we are everywhere  because of the work that Gov. Dean did.
    • Volunteers even in non-battleground states can help
    • Are starting a new fundraising mechanism: the Campaign for Change – an aggregate fund that will distribute funds to  26 battleground states.
  • Panel discussion
    • Reminded us of the quote by Republican Senator – Thad Cochran:   “The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), also a senior member of the Appropriations panel, told the Boston Globe recently. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”
    • Efficiency & fiscal responsibility have been key to the Obama campaign.  The amount they have to raise between now and  Nov. is enormous, but  entirely doable.
    • Feels that  the  McCain campaign provided a huge gift:
      • Rich = $5M
      • Doesn’t know how many houses
      • Feels like the economy is fundamentally sound
    • McCain is going to be chasing headlines and creating drama.
    • Key talking point: McCain is proposing to add $4Trillion to our deficit and cutung taxes – but says he’ll balance the budget.  Obama has  said that every program he proposes, his  economists need to show how they’d pay for
    • Question: voter protection and the polls
    • Answer: “It’s  not how you count the vote, it’s who counts the vote.  The DNC & Obama campaigns have done a lot to ensure  that the voting booths are not an issue:
      • Ohio’s Cuyahoga Voter council has been disbanded (these were the ones who had  been incompetent
      • Invested in Secretary of State races where there had been concerns of fairness
      • Did surveys of the election officials in many states/regions and identified where there are competency concerns – and have launched law suits where needed.
      • Biggest issue isn’t voter fraud, it’s going to be incompetence – especially since they expect record turnout this year.  With an average age of a pollworker around 72 and given that they’re on for almost a 20 hour day, it’s easy to imagine why there would be errors.  Key solutions will be:
        • Push people to do early voting & absentee ballots (this also helps inoculate voters against last minute lies that the Republicans will be invariably spreading)
    • Anyone who wants to win by not allowing everyone to vote does not deserve to win
    • McCain has opposed legislation for equal pay.

 

 

Knowing that McCain voted with Bush an average of 90% of the time (2005 – 77%, 2006 – 89%, 2007 – 95%)  and with a terrible trend, <obama’s line> Do you really want to take a 10% chance on change?