How Obama Won

New Yorker:

Last June, Joel Benenson, who was Barack Obama's top pollster during his Presidential run, reported on the state of the campaign. His conclusions, summed up in a sixty-slide PowerPoint presentation, were revealed to a small group, including David Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, and several media consultants, and, as it turned out, some of this research helped guide the campaign through the general election. The primaries were over, Hillary Clinton had conceded, and Obama had begun planning for a race against Senator John McCain.

There was good news and bad in Benenson's presentation. Obama led John McCain, forty-nine per cent to forty-four per cent, among the voters most likely to go to the polls in November, but there was also a large group of what Benenson called "up-for-grabs" voters, or U.F.G.s, who favored McCain, forty-eight per cent to thirty-six per cent. The U.F.G.s were the key to the outcome; if the election had been held then, Obama would have probably lost.

Read the whole story: New Yorker

Comments

[lagunabeach]

01:46 AM on 11/10/2008

Obama attracted and hired smart kindred spirits, each with a talent they employed to help Obama win the election. But fundamentally, these smart kindred spirits believed in a leader who they knew and who had proved to them that he not only could pronounce important English words like "nuclear" but also could think about and analyze complex problems and make an informed decision.

[Ged2012]

10:32 PM on 11/09/2008

Obama's discipline has locked up his campaign staff. That's why he won. He stuck to one theme regardless of the circumstances which gave him a landslide win.

[lisak2008]

06:34 PM on 11/09/2008

Wow, what a great article! I felt like I was behind the scenes with the campaign and, Mr. Lizza, you let me know that I definitely put my faith, hopes, and dreams, in the right candidate. Thank you!

[sgrl]

03:02 PM on 11/09/2008

I watched as McCain pinged from one gimmick to another...Palin...gimmick...suspending the campaign...gimmick...Joe the Plumber...gimmick...re-distributor in chief...gimmick, and on and on. I respected the fact that Obama stayed on point and on message. He behaved like a President, and as this article highlighted, that is what people wanted.

I remember thinking that maybe Obama should have chosen Hillary as his running mate, y'know to better his chances. But he is his own man, and you had to respect him for that. After the "lipstick" incident, I wanted him to get mad, and fight back publicly because I knew how ridiculous McCain's campaign reaction was. He ignored it, largely, and in the end he was right about that too.

Yes, I have voted many times, but never have I watched a campaign as intently as I have this one, and I have to say, that I have become pretty good at analyzing what I see...often voicing reactions or thinking of comments that I later hear from real pundits. Thank you, Barack Obama, for being a text-book example of how to run an election with few mis-steps. We are all better for it.

[DirkNLExpat]

05:37 PM on 11/09/2008

They are full of gimmicks and l i e s. pure s l i me.

[LemonMeringue]

02:47 PM on 11/09/2008

I think he won because people believe him.

[SadButWiser]

06:06 PM on 11/09/2008

Correct, and he also believed in the American people.

[Knowledgeseeker]

01:21 PM on 11/09/2008

Obama won because he applied his community organizers skills. ... after all is not that bad to be Community organizer if it help you become the president of the United States. My personal advise for Palin and Mccain. Learn from this one, never underestimate a former Community organizer......

[concernvoter]

01:03 PM on 11/09/2008

Everybody wants to have a say so. If Hillary Clinton would have won against Obama then a lot of the policy would have not been used in the election. They tried every trick in the book to use against Obama, but it did not work. When the Lord is for you, then no man can be against you. Obama had ten thousand to come against him, but they could not come near him. All the negative ads back fired against John McCain and Sarah Palin. It was about "Change" because too many people have suffered in the past eight years over nonsense.

[AnalyzeIT]

12:42 PM on 11/09/2008

He won because the alternative was positively frightening.

[Anda]

09:38 PM on 11/09/2008

He won with incredible media support and over 600 million in contributions, much from unknown sources.

Shisssh They might want to investigate these unknown source. That would take much of the stimules package already earmark for Wallstreet.

[ohmetoo]

11:24 PM on 11/09/2008

I'm not unknown and this is the first ever campaign I not only donated to but supported on the ground. Investigate away, the average donation was $86, from average Americans who were tired of not being heard. Plain and simple. I met people while helping in Colorado, not my state, who sent $25 a month to help this campaign monetarily and who worked hard in their neighborhoods to educate people. Pure and simple dedication, nothing unknown there at all.