Inside the secret world of data crunchers who helped Obama win
The new megafile didn’t just tell the campaign how to find voters and get their attention; it also allowed the number crunchers to run tests predicting which types of people would be persuaded by certain kinds of appeals. Call lists in field offices, for instance, didn’t just list names and numbers; they also ranked names in order of their persuadability, with the campaign’s most important priorities first. About 75% of the determining factors were basics like age, sex, race, neighborhood and voting record. Consumer data about voters helped round out the picture. “We could [predict] people who were going to give online. We could model people who were going to give through mail. We could model volunteers,” said one of the senior advisers about the predictive profiles built by the data. “In the end, modeling became something way bigger for us in ’12 than in ’08 because it made our time more efficient.”
Early on, for example, the campaign discovered that people who had unsubscribed from the 2008 campaign e-mail lists were top targets, among the easiest to pull back into the fold with some personal attention. The strategists fashioned tests for specific demographic groups, trying out message scripts that they could then apply. They tested how much better a call from a local volunteer would do than a call from a volunteer from a non–swing state like California. As Messina had promised, assumptions were rarely left in place without numbers to back them up…
A large portion of the cash raised online came through an intricate, metric-driven e-mail campaign in which dozens of fundraising appeals went out each day. Here again, data collection and analysis were paramount. Many of the e-mails sent to supporters were just tests, with different subject lines, senders and messages. Inside the campaign, there were office pools on which combination would raise the most money, and often the pools got it wrong.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
Someone should bookmark that link and take notes.
abobo on November 7, 2012 at 6:54 PM
oh please, Obama built a machine based on government intervention, thats how he won.
rob verdi on November 7, 2012 at 6:57 PM
Effective use of data mining could be the single biggest reason they won, and we lost. If Romney didn’t have an equivalent operation, then he didn’t stand a chance. Facebook and Google are mega lefties, though, and they are the experts.
bitsy on November 7, 2012 at 7:04 PM
I guess we’re supposed to read this in awe of their ability to con the unassuming public?
Seriously, we’re outnumbered and getting outgunned in what used to be our own safe territory. We’re playing defense on our own turf and retreating in the last 2 presidential cycles. In 2016, we’ll probably be clinging to IN and MO.
The advances we’re making in some states are mostly on the state level. Big whoop – we’re still getting stomped on from DC. We capture a senate seat in MA with as liberal a Republican as you get, and he loses to some outer orbit moonbat. I think some states need to look at the landscape and start putting other options on the table. What do we have in common with these people anymore?
The Count on November 7, 2012 at 7:05 PM
Not to be sore loser-ish but if Obama received the type of press inquisitiveness that any Republican would have received for Benghazi and FEMA’s mishandling of Sandy this article would not exist. On the other hand it does kind of explain how the Obama campaign took on the visage of a schizophrenic with Tourette’s at times.
nokarmahere on November 7, 2012 at 7:05 PM
I’m sure the media slobbering all over him helped just as much as these data crunches. Sure helps when so-called reporters don’t hold your admin accountable for jack squat.
changer1701 on November 7, 2012 at 7:08 PM
census-enumerators
Capitalist Hog on November 7, 2012 at 7:09 PM
Now I get why a cool guy like Obama made the google CEO, the goofiest guy ever, his bestie. Google and yahoo would NEVER share their technological secrets with a R the way they would with a D. Even with the same talented human resources, R’s can’t get the inside scopp that is handed willingly to D’s.
Add the press and a majority of americans wanting free stuff, and conservates are dying dinosaurs. We are Greece, face it.
JustTruth101 on November 7, 2012 at 7:10 PM
Sounds pretty high-tech. Very smart peeople on the job. Details with graphs, charts, focus groups and psychology. This is pretty impressive from a group who couldn’t create a job if it bit them in the face.
salem on November 7, 2012 at 7:11 PM
Meat puppets need puppeteers.
logis on November 7, 2012 at 7:11 PM
.
That is why our guys lost. Niceguyness. No attack instincts.
If it was the message, then why do we have 31-32 of the governorships?
LincolntheHun on November 7, 2012 at 7:32 PM
“Dolly the Sheep” voters engineered in test tubes in an OFA cave.
msmveritas on November 7, 2012 at 7:44 PM
Here’s my advanced research algorithm for predicting Obama’s win: people like free sh!t.
matd on November 7, 2012 at 7:48 PM
That’s the magic — awesome data mining. Plus, you know, a press that can’t drop to its knees fast enough when your candidate enters the room.
BO has a record of near total failure, and the simple fact is that 75% of the voters never heard the data. Everything else is tactical, which does not mean it’s not important. But if we can’t address the fact that voters never hear about F&F, Solyndra, unprecedented unemployment, Benghazi, etc, and that when they hear about Sandy it’s as Obama the Hero not FEMA the waterless, then mere tactics will never win the day.
SoRight on November 7, 2012 at 7:55 PM
Governors don’t have to withstand a billion dollars of character-assassination smear ads + free national media negative advertising + free pop culture negative advertising. They turned a compassionate, model citizen Mormon into a heartless plutocrat. Governors don’t have to go through that crucible.
Suppose we nominated the a pit bull like Newt. You think he would have been able to win against Obama in a negative campaigning firefight? I say not a chance.
There are other factors, sure. An abortion zealot might vote for a moderate pro-life politician for governor but never president because of SCOTUS appointees. WV always elects D Governors and Senators but called for Romney near instantaneously because Obama wants to put their coal state out of business.
The Count on November 7, 2012 at 7:56 PM
I thought Government isn’t suppose to create jobs?
Salahuddin on November 7, 2012 at 8:22 PM
Well Put… If they could only use those excessive resources to actually spur the economy.
romanianhacker on November 7, 2012 at 8:38 PM
ok, great ops. they sold us their product. now what ?
runner on November 7, 2012 at 9:05 PM
There’s your problem…
NORUK on November 7, 2012 at 9:15 PM
I disagree that data mining was their ultimate source into some sort of secret world of voters untapped. I say this because I’m a person who gambles on football games and spends countless hours myself data mining for bets. Many times I can look at season upon seasons of games played between two teams, where their playing how they play during night or day but obvious indicators just shout out what you really need to know. Example a few weeks back I made huge money on San Diego vs Cleveland. You could throw all the stats at me you want but all I did was look at the weather for that day (Rainy, cold and massive wind) and I knew right away to pick Cleveland even though all the so called experts were begging for San Diego.
You can set up scores of databases on people and every micro issue but what was staring them in the face was the growing swarms of people addicted to the government system of welfare and they knew it (47 Million food stamps/9 million social security disability/millions more on HUD/Welfare). They knew this last April because they had a ground game going out and basically telling people they would die if Romney was elected. They used their young little proletariat campaign workers for this. Republicans unfortunately got hoodwinked and lied to by many people they recruited in the voting process. I bet many of them told Republican friends how awful Obama was but the lure of the promise of free medical care and other things were too overwhelming. This is not the Republicans fault but the evils of a growing Statist class.
Coolidge on November 7, 2012 at 10:15 PM