Geee Posted November 21, 2013 Share Posted November 21, 2013 American Spectator: In the weeks following the 2012 elections, the post-mortems revealed how tech-savvy Obama’s re-election operation had been. The campaign built a revolutionary data-sharing platform and had more than 300 technologists and analysts on staff. In October of 2012, polls were showing a very close race, and the president’s approval rating hovered near 50 percent. So on election night, when battleground states began falling like dominoes into Obama’s column, and when Romney came up 126 electoral votes short, many people right of center were stunned. Virginia’s gubernatorial elections just weeks ago offered the first test of whether the GOP had learned its lessons from 2012—and an honest assessment shows more work to be done. Democrat Terry McAuliffe scaled down Obama’s model, contracting with BlueLabs, an analytics and data company started by some of Obama for America’s senior analytics staff, and fundraising and get-out-the-vote firm NGP VAN to model and target Virginians. McAuliffe ultimately won by less than 2.5 percent. Republicans need to do better. For months, even years, before the 2012 elections, the Obama team had been focusing on winning. The campaign began hiring top technologists to build out “Narwhal,” the campaign’s integrated data platform. Tools built by the technology team, like Dashboard, which helped to organize and manage volunteers, were then integrated with Obama’s field team. The campaign hired training directors for each battleground state and began constantly drilling its staff on how to use the technology. High quality contacts and live conversations on targeted voters’ doorsteps were emphasized, and the technology made all that more efficient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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