What's to discuss? "Many successes?"

He won a campaign. Now lets see him actually do something that matters to the 47% of people who didn't vote for him.

Boy is that an arrogant, snobby post. I'll be enjoying watching the next 4 years when the Democratic majority and Obama actually have to make decisions and be responsible for them. No excuses anymore, and no one else to blame. If your arrogance is any indication of how they will govern, I don't expect much success at all.

It is great that the youth vote put liberal democrats in control of wealth redistribution, seeing as how they know little to nothing about creating or managing wealth. I and many of my like minded friends will help cure them of their ignorance and naivete. How? Where as we used to donate significant sums, we are no longer giving any money to any charity. As, this is now the responsibility of the youth and those who look to government for their hope. However, we will support President Obama as OUR President and task him with the promises he made for social justice.

It'll be fun giving the people the government they want.

KronD, you posted the same thing eight times. I've deleted the duplicate posts. Please don't do that again. And please focus on the topic.

#1 from gabriel:

What's to discuss? "Many successes?"

He won a campaign.

Yes, that's the topic of the thread. Please focus on the successes of the Barack Obama campaign, including his allies and supporters.

#3 from Scooter, please focus on the topic.

Actually, I was going to do a post on the vote breakdown, and the fact that Obama won by 'converting' voters. See this piece at 'Complexity and Social Networks'

The plot suggests that while the answer is some of both, Obama's victory may be more about conversion than mobilization. In particular, note that all groups plotted increased their support of Obama (if you have suggestions of other ways of slicing the data, please suggest and I will try to update the plot). While there was an impressive mobilization of African American voters (who have a strong tendency to vote Democratic), there were also other groups less supportive of Democrats who made up a larger fraction of the electorate in 2008 than in 2004-- most notably, evangelical voters. However, interestingly, even evangelicals were more likely to support Obama than Kerry.

A.L.

Here, is this topical; President Elect Obama proved magnificent at farming the active participation of people accustomed to having their needs taken care of by others, aka the youth vote. Of course this farming was aided by the republicrats walking all over the promises their predecessors made. After all, revolution is born of populist arguments aimed at public discontent and Barack Obama implemented it beautifully. Is that better?

The Next Right (link), a blog I recommend to conservatives, is a good place to get information and insight on different aspects of the Barack Obama campaign's great successes. Following up on the youth vote, here is Patrick Ruffini (link):

"Obama's current popular vote margin is 6.1 percent."

"Obama's entire popular vote majority is accounted for by his increased appeal to youth and African Americans.

...

"And it's been only partially through new voter registration. He has gobbled up every last, existing young voter and African American (FTW, I get the distinct sense that Condi Rice too voted for Obama)."

That is impressive.

David,

I don't think Obama (& the democrats) ran a brilliant campaign so much as his opponents (& the republicans) ran a particularly bad one. In the end, the substance of McCain & Palin's campaign was an unpersuasive litany of why we shouldn't vote for Obama. It basically amounted to this: if you vote for him, bad things will happen. That failed to resonate with a majority of voters who feel that bad things have already happened.

That said, I can't deny that to a significant minority of his voters, Obama is an inspiration. To non-whites and to young people, he is a symbol of an important cultural transformation the country is currently in the middle of, i.e., the opening up of the backrooms of power to people other than white men. Many people, I believe, voted for this symbol, people who otherwise tend not to vote. This increase helped him certainly, though I am not convinced it is what put him over the edge.

McCain just didn't offer a sufficient departure from the ruling party held responsible for the dismal-seeming state of the country. Nor could he convince enough people that Obama was too scary to vote for. Most people really didn't have a choice in the end. McCain didn't give them one.

Armed Liberal, why not still do that, if you want to? True, that's a lot of what I want us to talk about here, but truths this big can bear some repetition.

I agree with you about the conversion, not just registration, and as you can see, so does Patrick Ruffini.

Here is an article to read:

How He Did It

Re: #6 from Scooter...

Much better!

Can you do posts with numbers and useful links to empirical support? I would like those in this thread. The graph in the post Armed Liberal linked to is great.

I'd love to see specifics on the Catholic vote. I suspect we have proved now that you literally cannot run a candidate whose pro abortion rights views and record are so extreme that the historically Democratic Catholic vote regards that as as a deal-breaker. Once you prove that, it is a major policy-related success, because it shatters the illusion that priests and dogmas sway Catholics - and often in politics the illusion of power is power, and when the illusion is shattered, figures that were once considered formidable enough to get some deference become pathetic.

I suspect we have proved now that you literally cannot run a candidate whose pro abortion rights views and record are so extreme that the historically Democratic Catholic vote regards that as as a deal-breaker

David, how have we proved that? Wouldn't you need a candidate fitting that description to lose? Or am I misunderstanding you?

He revolutionized campaign finance.

He proved that the world doesn't hate an America that knows its place.

He redefined "political unity" to include Rahm Emmanuel.

He persuaded Dan Rather that there's anti-Republican bias in the media.

He convinced Bill Clinton that "the race card" can be used unfairly.

He convinced Joe Biden he's ready to be President.

He convinced 60 million other people that Joe Biden's ready to be President.

He demonstrated that contra John Roberts the best way to achieve a postracial society is for one race to give a Mugabe-scale mandate to one of their own on an explicitly racial basis.

He showed that the press corps craves a strong hand that will define the boundaries of acceptable conduct and swiftly punish anyone who gets out of line.

He proved he can win an election in which an opponent's divorce records are not unsealed.

He showed that after twenty years of weekly attendance at a church, sometimes the pastor can still surprise you.

Addressing #12 and 13:

I would agree with that assessment if I thought for one second that the many pro-life voters for Obama realized that he was as rabidly pro-abortion as he has been.

The assertion that he voted as he voted in Illinois for infanticide was soundly attacked in the media and by political enablers who lied about Obama's record.

When this Democratic Congress passes, and President Obama signs, the Freedom of Choice Act, I would guess a significant portion of Obama voters are going to feel like they've been hit by a sledgehammer.

He avoided the issue of abortion, and his media cohorts abetted the deception. NARAL votes him at 100%, and I don't think they've been misled.

David Blue:

White catholics voted for McCain; presumably latino catholics voted for Obama. Link Also, the link suggests a difference between churchgoing catholics (McCain supporters) and nonchurchgoing catholics (Obama supporters).

#15:

Lets also not forget his pass on Gay Rights, primarily Gay Marriage, which has many more rational thinking gays very upset that Obama wasn't more forceful on his support of Gay Marriage, Californian's especially given the large gap in support for Yes on 8 that the black community at large gave at a tune of over 20% points.

I'll also be interested to see what his proposed FICA caps will be, given the numerous differing positions he took on that issue, as with a host of others that the press (not surprisingly) never bothered to press him on.

It will be interesting to see if the free pass that he has gotten to date will continue into his administration years. We have already seen the likes of Chris Mathews cave to his new masters by professing to do everything he can to make the new Presidency work" (somehow I don't think Bush ever got that concession) I'm sure the rest of the Obamamedia will fall in line.

"I suspect we have proved now that you literally cannot run a candidate whose pro abortion rights views and record are so extreme that the historically Democratic Catholic vote regards that as as a deal-breaker."

#13 from mark:

"David, how have we proved that? Wouldn't you need a candidate fitting that description to lose? Or am I misunderstanding you?"

No, he wouldn't have to lose to prove the point. He could get his votes elsewhere. The key point is whether an extreme hardline pro-choicer gets a lower Catholic vote than usual, not whether that reduced vote costs him the election.

My point is, with the Catholic vote, the pro-life doctrine of the Church points one way, and secular and historical influences point the other way. There's a tension. And from this point of view, it's a good thing for the Democratic Party if the bishops and their ancient doctrines are revealed as out of touch and powerless. Which I suspect they have been.

If there are no negative consequences for candidates with very strong pro-choice stands, then a big bluff has been called with success, and future generations of pro-choice Catholics, politicians and Catholic politicians will be bolder in consequence.

On the youth vote, I listened to the commentary on PBS on election night and two analysists of the exit polls disputed the notion that getting out the youth vote had been crucial, particularly in some of the swing states. They opined that turnout was up across-the-board, offsetting the demographic significance of the youth vote (yet again). But across almost every demographic group, it was as if the public had shifted a few degrees to the left.

That makes sense to me, the elections have been so close. If Kerry had been 3 percentage points more popular, this is probably what his electoral count would have looked like.

#16 from PD Shaw:

"David Blue:"

"White catholics voted for McCain; presumably latino catholics voted for Obama. Link Also, the link suggests a difference between churchgoing catholics (McCain supporters) and nonchurchgoing catholics (Obama supporters)."

Good point!

Barack Obama has had a huge success winning the decisive Latino vote for the Democrats.

From Armed Liberal's link:

"The group that shifted the most, in absolute terms, toward McCain were Hispanic voters. Also a good long run sign for the Democrats."

gabe,

somehow I don't think Bush ever got that concession

You're joking, right? Bush had unparalleled & unquestioning support & allowances from the public, the press and the entire world for a good year following 9/11. I think people forget that he had a pretty pleasant ride before 9/11, as well, as his charm earned him significant benefit of doubts, all of which was as it should have been. He did manage to get himself re-elected, too, don't forget, so either the liberal press isn't all that influential or it isn't all that liberal.

Re: #15 from dadmanly...

I'd like to leave that one aside for now. Because it could matter a lot, when that crunch time comes, whether people resolve the cognitive conflict between having believed one way and - as it turns out - voted the other by changing their intended future votes or by changing their beliefs. I don't think there's much to say about that that can't be said better when we see how people are reacting.

Face the facts he raised more money to out Rove Rove organizational genius to push his message. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
That he had a better message helped as well.

On the fundraising -- I see no one here addressing the real questions about how many of his small donations were illegitimate because he disabled the normal credit card verification protections on his website and did not do any checks on whether the individual donating was even a U.S. citizen (See the story about his Aunt whose donations were only returned when it was publicized that she is not a U.S. citizen) AND he has refused to allow those donations to be examined by any outside source merely because the law does not require him to. (All in contrast to the McCain campaign that publicized the donations, checked citizenship, and had strict credit card controls)
On the youth vote. I find it utterly unsurprising that a democrat leftist would win the youth vote. Unfortunately our universities and public schools are absolutely dominated by leftist thought to the detriment of any other ideology. As a result, most young people tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Add in the "cool" factor of voting for Obama and being a "part of history" and it is not a surprise at all.
Republicans and conservatives will face an uphill battle with the youth vote until they can break the stranglehold the leftists have on education, and that's pretty hard because those open-minded, tolerant, and diversity-supporting lefties don't like to allow in many dissenters.
And David -- I've no idea why my original post posted 8 times. As I only clicked the post button once, I'd have to assume the problem was a technical one with your site. And as to staying on the topic, I was absolutely on topic. You stated as if it was fact that we discuss the "brilliance" of Obama's campaign. I simply pointed out that such an assertion is arrogant. When Bush won in 2004 overcoming a biased press and in the middle of an unpopular war, did you declare his victory "brilliant"? I'd guess not.

Republicans and conservatives will face an uphill battle with the youth vote until they can break the stranglehold the leftists have on education [#24]

Isn't this point directly contradicted by the data linked to in David's original post?

Young people have been voting Republican in substantial numbers in 2000 and 2004. They changed their minds in 2008.

Limits to terminological warfare

The Right has profited substantially from Terminological Warfare: devising clever terms like "Pro-Life" and "Death Tax" that slant the whole discussion in their direction.

But it's a strategy that can be over-done, and when it is, it undercuts the entire message. We see this in "pro-abortion" and "infanticide" [#15].

Nobody is pro-abortion. Plenty of people are pro-choice, because they believe that sometimes an abortion is the lesser of the evils facing them, and they believe that the woman should make that decision, not the State. Other people feel the other way. But nobody ever says, "Oh, boy, I get to go get an abortion!" It simply doesn't happen. And when you try to set up the terminology to imply that your opponent has that position, you abandon the subtlety of a strategy that depends on subtlety to work.

Likewise, the attempts to create memes for "palling around with terrorists" and "hates America" were simply not viable. Nobody paying attention could take them seriously, so that part of the campaign subtracted votes from McCain's total.

#24 from KronD:

"On the fundraising -- I see no one here addressing the real questions about how many of his small donations were illegitimate because he disabled the normal credit card verification protections on his website and did not do any checks on whether the individual donating was even a U.S. citizen (See the story about his Aunt whose donations were only returned when it was publicized that she is not a U.S. citizen) AND he has refused to allow those donations to be examined by any outside source merely because the law does not require him to. (All in contrast to the McCain campaign that publicized the donations, checked citizenship, and had strict credit card controls)"

Here you go. (link) My post is over a week old, so you'll have to do a captcha every time you post, but if you want to contribute useful, high-quality links, facts and arguments, I want your contribution with a pretty please. But I want it in that thread, not this one.

#24 from KronD:

"On the youth vote. I find it utterly unsurprising that a democrat leftist would win the youth vote. Unfortunately our universities and public schools are absolutely dominated by leftist thought to the detriment of any other ideology. As a result, most young people tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat."

As Beard said, the data in my original post show that they just moved away from the Republican Party (to the Democrats one assumes), and Barack Obama is the only obvious cause for this big shift. So that's a brilliant achievement - one that could help shape the future in favor of Left politics.

#24 from KronD:

"And David -- I've no idea why my original post posted 8 times. As I only clicked the post button once, I'd have to assume the problem was a technical one with your site."

Fair enough.

#24 from KronD:

"And as to staying on the topic, I was absolutely on topic. You stated as if it was fact that we discuss the "brilliance" of Obama's campaign. I simply pointed out that such an assertion is arrogant. When Bush won in 2004 overcoming a biased press and in the middle of an unpopular war, did you declare his victory "brilliant"? I'd guess not."

Your guess is right, but that's because I hardly posted back then. I am only posting more now because I think Armed Liberal has been carrying too much of the site on his back. I'm not desperate for the world to hear my opinions on every topic or even terribly impressed with the quality of my own posts; I just think that "blog civic-mindedness" is a good thing, and practice makes perfect.

And don't misunderstand where I'm coming from. If there are any differences between the Pope's opinions and mine on abortion and other life issues I'm unaware of them. That makes the Republican Party mostly the good guys and the Democratic Party mostly not. I want the Party of Life to beat the Party of Choice, AKA the Party of Death.

But:
* I'm a big believer in fair mindedness, sportsmanship and acknowledging the other guy's good points. Which in this case are numerous and impressive.
* I agree with J.S. Mill that if you only know your own side of the argument you don't even know that very well.
* In the words of Private Hudson, from the classic Aliens (1984): "Maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events but we just got our asses kicked, pal."

What good does it do to pretend the Democrats haven't got a great election winner to lead their cause? Do you think they haven't noticed they have this weapon, and they won't use it unless we mention it?

"I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it."
- Joe Stillwell (link)

So let's look at how Barack Obama caned us in this election: the full damage, the brilliance of his strategy, where and how he got his votes, both popular and electoral - the whole thing. And links to solid numbers are good, because that counteracts the harmful human tendency not to want to acknowledge the whole truth.

On which topic, Barack Obama inspired a movement, he didn't only raise a ton of money and buy the election.

The Next Right (link):

"If Republicans conclude that 2008 was simply a mechanical failure -- that it was all about how Barack Obama "used" the Internet or ran an otherwise flawless campaign -- then they will draw the wrong lessons from this year."

...

The central fact of Obama is the incredible political skill of the candidate. And a campaign was built around him that complemented his strengths. Technology allowed the enormous energy around a candidate like Obama to be harnessed in ways that tangibly helped the campaign, first by dramatically changing the fundraising landscape, and second by making possible a massive influx of volunteer energy (that the publicly funded campaigns of yesteryear simply couldn't have digested). In that it allowed him to reach for the $1 billion spending mark, the Internet was absolutely central to Obama's campaign, even if only a small fraction of that money was spent online.

But as important as these strategies and tactics were, the fundamental building block is the candidate. The candidates who are successful online are the ones who don't just lead campaigns or political parties -- they lead movements. When they ask people to get involved, they really mean it. Our 2012 candidate has to be comfortable with building a movement. Before a change in strategy can work, our candidates need to change. Layering a good Internet strategy on top of someone running for President of the cocktail party circuit whose campaign only cares about bundling the most big checks in Q1 or Q2 of 2011 will not work. That model died in 2008.

Re: #26 from Beard...

You seem to have posted that in the wrong thread. I don't know what thread that belongs in, but it doesn't belong in this one.

Please talk about the brilliant accomplishments of President-elect Barack Obama and the achievements of his team and supporters in this election.

Hrmph. A thread with a disciplined topic. That's a great idea when the discipline is applied to the other guy [4,11,27.1], but not so much when it's applied to me! [28] ;-)

Actually, keep it up. You might actually achieve something.

On the other hand, in defense of the relevance of my point about terminological warfare, the brilliance of Barack Obama was in simply backing away from that strategy, and responding primarily with restraint and substance. (I'm sure there are exceptions, so I don't want to go to the mat about this.)

But at the end of the day (of each day, pretty much), McCain came across as the one who was not in control of his position and his message, while Obama did seem in control, of himself and of his campaign. Obama-Biden seemed much more the "grown-up ticket" than the McCain-Palin ticket did. And being the grown-up was one of the major selling points McCain had to offer.

#29 from Beard:

"But at the end of the day (of each day, pretty much), McCain came across as the one who was not in control of his position and his message, while Obama did seem in control, of himself and of his campaign. Obama-Biden seemed much more the "grown-up ticket" than the McCain-Palin ticket did. And being the grown-up was one of the major selling points McCain had to offer."

How could we operationalize that and quantify it?

I'm not saying we have to. "Charisma", "excitement" and "leader of a movement, not just manager of a party" all go in Obama's "plus" column as far as I'm concerned, and they're just subjective impressions too, though a lot of people share them.

But if we can get some kind of handle on this, it would be good. I think it's worth pursuing this, because it's an important point.

One of the raps on Edwards in 2004 is that he was trying to cheat a system that, although informal, was cheat-proof. You have to go through certain stages of experience to attain the degree of eminence he was aiming for, and he hadn't, therefore he had to lose. (By the way, this was against John F. Kerry, it was not a partisan point.)

Barack Obama fronted up to that door with a lock that couldn't be picked, and blew it off it's hinges.

How? Just through backing off on rhetorical overkill and staying solidly on message? John Edwards had that going for him too, in 2004. It wasn't nearly enough.

Some of the best quantitative analysis of polls before and after the campaign comes from fivethirtyeight.com.

Here is their detailed group-by-group comparison between the Obama and Kerry numbers.

Interestingly, Obama lost ground slightly among voters age 65+ and among gay and lesbian voters, but gained ground significantly in almost all other categories. Noteworthy are large gains among those with family income above $200K.

These guys will continue digging into all the questions you are interested in.

How? Just through backing off on rhetorical overkill and staying solidly on message? [#30]

Absolutely not. It clearly makes a difference what the message is.

Bush said: "There are terrible threats to the country out there, but don't worry. We'll take care of it. You just need to go shopping."

McCain said: "There are terrible threats to the country out there, and in here too. I know how to take care of it."

Obama said: "We are facing substantial problems, inside and outside the country, and I will need your help and sacrifice, but we can solve them if we work together."

Guess which message resonated with the American people? (I hear echoes of John Kennedy, but also Ronald Reagan, in Obama's message.)

#31 from Beard:

"These guys will continue digging into all the questions you are interested in."

Yes. This is what I'm looking for. Thanks for the link.

I found this data surprising: Voter turnout unchanged in 2008. Essentially the same portion of people came out to vote in 2008, but more Republicans stayed home and more Democrats came out:

Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent, while Democratic turnout increased by 2.6 points from 28.7 percent in 2004 to 31.3 percent in 2008.

Link

Re: #34 from PD Shaw:

"I found this data surprising: Voter turnout unchanged in 2008. Essentially the same portion of people came out to vote in 2008, but more Republicans stayed home and more Democrats came out..."

It is surprising, but the reasons given were good.

We’ll get more data in the coming weeks and months and be able to assess this more accurately. Democrats, especially young and African-American Democrats in swing states, were extremely energized in this election but Republicans, whether because of lack of enthusiasm for John McCain or because the polls made the outcome seem inevitable, were not.

I've been reading about the Republican civil war over Sarah Palin. She's popular with about 90% of voting Republicans, but very much less than that with former Bush staffers and other party elites, it seems. One of the things her many, many supporters often say online is that they were going to sit this election out till Sarah Palin was announced. Of course those who want real change in the Republican Party and right-wingers like Sarah Palin excluded from power say: this is nonsense; the base always turns out, so its sentiments can safely be disregarded. It looks to me from the discouraged final vote total for Republicans (and the state of the McCain campaign before Sarah Palin was announced) that the masses of highly partisan Republicans saying they were discouraged by John McCain and seriously considering sitting the election out were telling the truth, and others did sit the election out.

And at the same time, while Republicans were struggling with a deficit of enthusiasm for their leadership, Democrats were buoyed up by a super-abundance of enthusiasm for their leadership, a steady enthusiasm that - despite the PUMAa - stayed strong through the long campaign, up to early voting and then election day.

The economic crisis could potentially have reflected badly on both parties (though the Republicans, being the party of Bush and being seen as the party of the rich, were at a disadvantage here), but perhaps Democrats were inclined to shrug off any negative implications for their leadership, because they had deep and steady confidence in their leaders and especially at the top of the ticket. At the same time, highly partisan Republicans, dragged into the election only by the vice-presidential candidate and never liking the candidate at the top of the ticket, saw John McCain act like a Senator not a president, suspending his campaign, rushing back to the Senate and achieving nothing with his intervention in favor of compromise, supporting the unpopular bailout without being to explain convincingly why, and generally looking out of his depth.

I guess this is a long way of saying: I think Beard is right about the Democrat leaders having come across as the adults in the room. I think the main reason he could make the sale nationally was that there was a real crisis, and - bolstered by his strong popular support - Barack Obama showed the calmness people wanted, while John McCain - without either that strong personal support or Barack Obama's political genius and strategic steadiness - went in the opposite direction.

Message discipline is nice, but it becomes something else when a catastrophic event shows that your message is relevant and you can cut it in the job you are running for, while you're opponent's message is irrelevant ("The surge worked! I was right!" That's nice, John.) and he's visibly not cutting it in the role he's running for.

Further, the Electoral College system, which renders the presidential vote in most states essentially irrelevant, makes it hard to justify bothering. If you’re a Republican in California or D.C. or a Democrat in Texas or Alabama, your vote simply doesn’t count. So, unless you’re spurred by civic pride or down ballot elections, it’s hard to get motivated.

Yup. For structural reasons, motivating people is not easy, and this time the Republicans showed it was too hard for them, but Barack Obama showed it was not too hard for him.

Here's another graph, of partisan voting from 1960 to 2008: (link).

I go to the "cultural factors push Democrats relentlessly forward" school, which does indeed mean Republicans are in a lot of trouble.

But you still have to harness that potential. It's amazing, it's very impressive, how well Barack Obama did so.

Part of it has to be that Barack Obama follows a "no enemies on the Left" policy, except when he's forced to throw someone under the bus to advance his own career.

This has been a rap on him from conservatives. I've never seen why, and I think he's just correct. It's the mirror image of Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment to speak no ill of fellow Republicans. That also worked.

(And I also don't see why the Left, including the new President-elect, would ever forgive Joe Lieberman, who turned against them. Nor do I see anything wrong in "Operation Leper", designed to make sure that the Republican political operatives who were tearing down Sarah Palin even during the election never work in a Republican campaign again. This is just old school sensible partisan politics, equally valid on both sides.)

It was safe, emotionally and politically, for all sorts of Lefties with unorthodox ideas - from Socialists to extreme Greens to gay extremists to wild Black power types - to throw their full zeal and belief into Barack Obama's cause. He would never cut you down without necessity. There were no "Sister Souljah" moments.

Barack Obama couldn't appease the PUMA Hillary Clinton supporters who he had offended so badly with his "Chicago style" election tactics, but everyone he could appease, on his side of politics, he did.

Barack Obama was also on the right side in an election of generational change - and he hammered home his advantage brilliantly. (link)

"Hi Andy, I work in the field of academia, while I do agree that the preponderance of left leaning professors on college campuses is influencing a generation to vote Democrat I don’t think that wholly accounts for the overwhelming popularity of Obama among the youth. Especially 18 year old first time voters who have not been in college long enough to be influenced by liberal professors."

"No, one must take into consideration that these students could relate to Obama. He is young, fresh, and speaks their language. McCain is none of these. As an example the students I interact with ate it up when Obama campaigned in jeans. Also, Obama was a master at obtaining cell phone numbers. From his rallies with celebrities to his V.P. announcement stunt. This allowed Obama to reach out directly to the cell phone generation. For the first time in their life a candidate was literally talking to them, paying attention to them, sending them messages on their phone. Not their parents phone but their phone."

With the conversion versus mobilization only issue, Rush Limbaugh seems to be on the same page (link):

RUSH: Yeah, I've looked at the exit poll data. I looked at McCain, 20% of conservatives voted for Obama. The vast majority --

CALLER: I don't believe that.

RUSH: I'll explain why here in just a second. You said you don't believe it. I do.

CALLER: Yeah?

RUSH: I do. We have exit poll data I shared with you yesterday, 41% of voters in exit polls identified themselves as conservatives and something like maybe 31% identified themselves as liberals. The rest wishy-washy moderates and independents or said they didn't know what they were, but I could probably show you enough e-mails the past six months from people to me that constitute the 20% of conservatives that didn't vote for McCain. These are people said, "I can't vote for the guy. I cannot vote for the guy, and I'm not going to vote against somebody. I can't vote for this guy, and the Republicans need to be taught a lesson," and so there was a lot of that sentiment out there. And I firmly believe it.

Pinning conversion on McCain instead of crediting it to Obama is a different take; but at least there's no denial about the fact of widespread conversion.

I can say around here there were a lot of Republicans that voted for Obama and then voted Republican pretty much straight down the remainder of the ticket.

In an Illinois County that voted for Bush in '00 and '04, this year the results were:

Obama 52.2%
McCain 47.8%

For Congress, the results shifted:

Democrat: 43.0%
Republican: 52.5%
No vote: 4.5%

(About half of the "no votes" come from a Congressional District in which no Republican was on the ballot. It's possible that had a Republican been running the Congressional votes would have shifted a bit, but clearly a number of people came out just to vote for President)

Obama ran an enormously disciplined campaign, largely preventing back-stabbing among his staffers, and successfully maintaining personal control over the message that went out. Both McCain and Clinton failed to do this.

This kind of discipline, keeping control over a group of strong-minded individuals, keeping them focused on a single goal, sounds like it should come from someone with military command experience. I expect that Obama got it from his experience as a community organizer! There, you have community goals, and lots of stake-holders with different positions, and you can only achieve your goals if you can keep everyone lined up in the same direction. And, you don't have the advantage of the formal military discipline structure. You have to achieve the same level of disciplined coordination by persuasion.

Note that McCain's military experience was primarily as a pilot (a solo warrior) and as a prisoner of war (another largely solo ordeal, I would guess). I don't know his history in detail, but I wonder how much command experience he has had, if any. The experience he had gave him grit and endurance, but not necessarily the skills needed to mold a group of strong-minded subordinates into a team to accomplish a goal.

Some of you folks are a lot more familiar than I am with McCain's resume, and with military command, so I would be interested in knowing whether this makes sense to you.

hey , I want to all of the haters who do not like Barack Obama to shut up. He has won won this election was fair and square. you should know that we are in a deep hole in our economy and it will take some time for him to change what bush messed up. We well io voted for him barack because his issues is real. He will help us with our weather climate issue, stocks dropping in our economy, wars in Iraq and Russia, and help us as Americans get america where it needs to be. We also have to worrie about our healthcare and children educastion and with Obama will help us as president elect Im sorry Obama will and I have confidence that he will help us. So all of your McCain voters can still not believe because Obama is our president so shut up quit or just go along with the program because in the end he will be our next president in Janurary.

[Five identical copies posted. Extras deleted without further comment. --NM]

Thanks, PD Shaw. That's good, relevant information.

#40 from Beard:

"Obama ran an enormously disciplined campaign, largely preventing back-stabbing among his staffers, and successfully maintaining personal control over the message that went out."

I agree. And to underline his achievement, it's worth mentioning his rivals, who were unable to do this.

#40 from Beard:

"Both McCain and Clinton failed to do this."

But is that right? It's right for McCain, but it didn't seem to me that the Clinton campaign showed any extraordinary number of cracks by the standards of losing campaigns. Going down the gurgler puts intense pressure on the losing campaign, and the winning campaign doesn't have to deal with that.

The Obama campaign did exhibit better planning and mastery of the nuts and bolts of getting the nomination, concentrating on caucuses, while the Clinton campaign went after big states that split their delegates and thus had no special payoff. But that's a matter of expertise and foresight, not cohesion.

#40 from Beard:

"This kind of discipline, keeping control over a group of strong-minded individuals, keeping them focused on a single goal, sounds like it should come from someone with military command experience."

Not necessarily. Military leadership doesn't always transfer well to civilian and corporate life. It certainly can, but it need not. For one thing, the military assumes that at some point everyone is on the same side. In corporate wars, and even more in politics, that is not a safe assumption. For another, the "gadfly" style John McCain adopted in Republican Party politics for a long time may have "overwritten" any military training he had and prepared him poorly for a job where he had to be the establishment and lead the establishment.

However, I don't want to take this too much further, because it gets into the war Republicans are getting into now about Steve Schmidt, Sarah Palin and so on. A lot of Republicans think that John McCain's campaign manager Steve Schmidt has not exhibited sufficient loyalty to the conservative cause as opposed to his own opinions and career (link) and that in failing to support his gung-ho if headstrong running mate John McCain has not acted in a way consistent with the military virtues he's written and talked about. (link)

"Sen. McCain did not allow a nanosecond to go buy without issuing a sanctimonius, full-throated condemnation of any Republican who dared use Sen. Obama's middle name, mention Jeremiah Wright, or otherwise trash The One."

"So where is the vigorous defense of his running-mate?"

"I'm sorry Obama won, but I'm not weeping that we won't have these fabulously honorable guys running the place — and running down their own — for the next four years."

Feel the love - not. That's the lack of cohesion you were taking about. But this red-on-red firefight is a "hot" topic that leads away from what Obama did right, which is what I want us to focus on.

#40 from Beard:

"I expect that Obama got it from his experience as a community organizer! There, you have community goals, and lots of stake-holders with different positions, and you can only achieve your goals if you can keep everyone lined up in the same direction. And, you don't have the advantage of the formal military discipline structure. You have to achieve the same level of disciplined coordination by persuasion.

So you're saying that "self-education for leadership" be marked down as one of Barack Obama's successes?

Just a reminder of how crushing a win we're discussing: Rich Lowry (link):

"Republicans are consoling themselves by telling anyone who will listen that we still live in a “center-right country.” They’re right. That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’ve lost the center."

" According to exit polls, Barack Obama won moderates by a whopping 21 points on Tuesday, 60-39 percent. That more than doubled John Kerry’s 9-point margin over George W. Bush among moderates in 2004."

...

"All of this gave Obama a victory that reached into every region in the country. He took away two of the fastest-growing former red states in Colorado and Virginia. He left Republicans with a coalition that is older, whiter and more rural. The Appalachian region — including parts of Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania — looked like a path for McCain to squeak to an electoral majority, but it’s not an area on which a party can stake its future."

So you're saying that "self-education for leadership" be marked down as one of Barack Obama's successes? [#42]

Yes, but I was saying a bit more than that. I was suggesting a parallel between military experience and experience as a community organizer, as sources of relevant experience for learning leadership.

For example, I'm sure Tiger Woods has learned a lot of important things about focus and concentration from his personal journey, but probably not so much that would help him lead a group of other people. In this, McCain's experience in the military was more like Tiger Woods' experience (albeit certainly not as triumphant, either).

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but while I would agree "self-education for leadership" should get a tick, the theory that community organizers are qualified to lead but fighter pilots are not strikes me as a) a worthless bit of pop psychology with unjustifiably negative implications for military veterans in many highly demanding roles and b) not one of the successes of President-elect Barack Obama. But anything else that has to be said about that can be discussed - preferably in another thread - by someone who knows John McCain's military career better than I do.

Back to what Barack Obama accomplished in this election, let's look at some CNN poll numbers. (link)

Barack Obama made the sale earlier, had his campaign contacting people personally much more effectively, generated more excitement about a win from his supporters (but oddly, less optimism), practically owned the votes of the unmarried, and women other than married mothers, and got jaw-dropping numbers from religious voters of various stripes. Given his stands on abortion (and some other issues), that he got 54% of the Catholic vote is really impressive. Obviously he would get practically all the Black votes (96%) regardless of their religion including Catholic, and he also crushed John McCain with Hispanics (though that is not covered in this polling, but the bottom line there is that the Republican Party got absolutely no reward from nominating the strongest pro-amnesty fighter it has). But he even got 47% of the white Catholic vote (while cleaning up hugely with Jews, others religions, atheists and other races).

Given where he stands, it's staggering that he was able to do this. It's a mark of genius, in my opinion.

Oh, piffle! You have constructed a bogus straw man to shoot down:

the theory that community organizers are qualified to lead but fighter pilots are not [David Blue, #45]

My initial point was that Barack Obama showed excellent leadership skills and ran a highly disciplined campaign, while John McCain did not. [Read the recent Newsweek.]

Since leadership skills and the beneficial effects of military experience are frequent topics on this site, this raises the obvious question of why this particular case seems to run counter to expectations, at least of many people around here. The hypothesis that occurs to me is that Barack Obama was able to learn those skills from his experience as a community organizer. (In spite of the scorn that was heaped on that line of work from various directions, though possibly not around here.)

However it is that he got those skills, it remains that Barack Obama appears to have some important leadership skills, and in greater measure than his opponent. Perhaps the reason he won the election was not by super-skillful campaigning, but by showing the American people that he was genuinely better qualified.

OK, we had a crossed connection there. One of my hobby horses, though it has not come up at Winds of Change as far as I can remember, is that while I am a fan of Trevor Nevitt Dupuy's work, I am a big skeptic on his idea of the institutionalization of military genius. I think you can't institutionalize military genius. You cannot guarantee, ever, that some gifted freak like Joan of Arc or some student of history like ... who is this, Mister Giap? can't possibly be more dangerous than you, because you are a graduate of XYZ Military College, which has institutionalized military genius. There is always the potential for there to be someone out there, whose credentials may look ludicrous to you, who can do stuff that would turn your hair white. And I think that the root of military genius is in what I call the primary heroic impulse which means its appearance can never be abstracted from specific time/place crises and doled out in classrooms.

So I don't have a theory that someone who has passed a military course in leadership has to be better at every kind of leadership than a civilian who has not; nor do I have any use for a theory that "community organizer" substitutes for the needed military instruction.

In Armed Liberal's thread on President Obama, where I was called out by Nortius Maximus, I praised what I called "the Yes We Can" crowd as a key to Barack Obama's success (along with the MoveOn/Kos Kiddies and unlovely but effective old-school pork-stars like John Murtha). Barack Obama has available a big pool of highly talented people who would lie down in traffic for him, and that's a blessing in government as much as in running for office. Barack Obama can fill a lot of important positions with people who will actually be working for him.

By way of contrast, John McCain is not the leader of a movement (rather he has advanced himself as a conservative gadfly), and he does not have a big pool of personal loyalists to call on. From which I traced his use of Bush staffers to manage Palin (because he didn't have his own pool of loyal experts to do the key job of assimilating a great new talent to his cause), their EPIC FAIL handling of the Palin rollout, and now I would add the post-election carnival of back-stabbing directed at Sarah Palin. And I said: I do not see how it would have been possible to govern like this. I'll elaborate on that now: if you can't integrate major talent into your team even when that talent is a gung-ho competitor out to make your team win, because you don't have enough people with her best interests and yours at heart to do that, then you're like a patient that is now too sick to eat. It's not possible to govern effectively without even enough of a makeshift team to bootstrap yourself to a real team.

I count the cultivation of a movement of idealistic personal followers as one of Barack Obama's biggest successes. And since I don't think you can criticize leadership fairly without looking at what the leader had to lead, that same population of good followers counts equally, or more, as "his brilliance".

Absolutely! In many cases, going to the elite schools can be a disadvantage, because it leads to smugness and a sense of entitlement, rather than fire in the belly. I see it all the time.

What you need is the combination of the fire in the belly that says that you want to change the world, with the ability to do the job, with the confidence that tells you that you can do the job. There's no recipe to make this happen.

Re: #48 from Beard: what you said.