Analyzing the Win: What did Obama do right?

[Black Dynamite]

Fuck the race thing, to blow up as far as Obama has from being fairly unknown is a pretty big accomplishment on his part. What do people here feel he did to make jump?

[Black Dynamite]

I think the getting people just to vote campaign paid off(we may set a voting record). I heard countless commercials on urban radio stations by obama that were strictly about voting rather than trying to con them into voting for him.

[Zip Goshboots]

Because he is the right man for the right time--because American wanted to finally do the right thing and be free. An election is not always about the campaign--it can be about the people who receive the message, In this case, America received the message, they listened, and the voted with their conscience and looked at the issues, and rejected our past. This is the most positive thing that has happened in this country since Robert Kennedy engineered the change that occured in the 60s. Now, America must stick with it, must endure, and must allow Barak Obama to succeed--and to fail--and must judge him simply by what he can do or can't do.

[Black Dynamite]

I understand that, but i'm talking about the beginning to now, its not as simple as right man for the job. He had a strategy and thats what I wanted to look at.

[Zip Goshboots]

His strategy was to appeal to thinking Americans.

[UxKa]

Possibly the most successful grass roots campaign ever. He really built it from the ground up rather than just skimming the surface and going for general audiences from the get go. A couple years ago he was giving a speech at a community college across the street from my parents house to an audience of only a couple hundred people.

He is a great orator, and his speeches are very motivating. That strongly tied into your point about just getting people to vote rather than converting voters.

[geerussell]

The two things that stand out most for me are the tightly linked decision to opt out of public financing and his 50-state strategy.

He leveraged modern technology to create a network of donors and supporters from scratch. Not only doing an end run around the old, existing political machines but dwarfing them almost into irrelevance.

All that money allowed him to deploy a serious campaign in every state and McCain was simply unable to muster a defense on so many fronts. Soaking up so much money basically starved the 527s and swiftboaters of the left wing, leaving Obama's campaign in total control of his message.

[Glenn]

His strategy was to appeal to thinking Americans.

the young and educated helped carry the day

the old and uneducated are sad

[Uncle Mxy]

Actually, I'd argue that the educated did NOT carry the day, unless you're talking the highly educated. Obama did well with the extremely educated and extremely uneducated, and it was those people with "some college" or "just" a 4-year degree where his support was narrowest.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/res...s/#val=USP00p1

I'd say that his being able to win the Hispanic vote by big margins was the key. That's how he gets Florida, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada.

[Tahoe]

Sorry I'm not going to give full-on felatio to BO here but part of it is the new face factor. Carter even rode that wave, Reagan, Clinton and Dubya.

Its not the only factor but its part of it.

#8 GD, go search Utube for BO supporters or something. Its pretty amazing. They feel Palin was a good choice for BO. lol