Obama paved a new road for political campaigns

COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy

David Plouffe, President Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign manager, speaks at Bridges Auditorium on Wednesday evening as part of Pomona College’s Distinguished Speaker Series. President Obama has credited Mr. Plouffe with building what he thought was the “best political campaign in the history of the United States.”

Obama paved a new road for political campaigns

In the words of president Barack Obama, David Plouffe was “the unsung hero” of the 2008 presidential campaign. He was the man behind the scenes, who built “the best political campaign in the history of the United States.”

In a spirited talk at Pomona College on March 25th, Mr. Plouffe discussed the campaign’s most successful innovations and key characteristics of a most extraordinary approach to political affairs.

David Plouffe began his political career with Senator Tom Harkin’s re-election campaign in 1990. Between 1990 and 1997, he worked continuously on democratic campaigns and successfully navigated the re-election of officers for both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Plouffe’s work with the President started in 2003 with Mr. Obama’s campaign for the Illinois Senate. As a manager for the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Plouffe was responsible for decisive choices that determined the unconventional outlook and successful outcome of the campaign.

“This campaign was a revival of the rhetoric of hope,” Mr. Plouffe remarked at the beginning the talk, before engaging in a detailed description of the campaign’s advantages and main successful innovations.

The most important feature of the campaign was its defined message and steady electoral strategy that stayed the same from beginning to end. “It drove the press crazy,” Mr. Plouffe said.

“They kept asking, ‘Where’s the new message?’ But we didn’t need to sit around and come up with a new strategy every two weeks.” Mr. Plouffe explained that Mr. Obama had a very clear sense of why he wanted to run the country. Once the strategy was established inside the campaign, it did not need to be changed. “There was no turmoil,” he said. “Every day when we woke up, we knew where we were going.”

Another closely watched decision for the campaign was to focus closely on the first caucus in Iowa in 2007. “We believed that winning Iowa would reset the entire campaign,” Mr. Plouffe said. He explained that focusing on both large and small states was key to Mr. Obama’s success.

Mr. Plouffe emphasized Mr. Obama’s willingness to defy conventional wisdom and the “old-fashioned way” of running a presidential campaign. Some ridiculed this strategy, but now find it very sound.

“We wanted to show that Obama was not someone who was going to follow conventions,” Mr. Plouffe explained. Basing the campaign in Chicago and not in Washington, where conventions come from, was very important. “We had a healthy base there,” he said.

COURIER photo/Gabriel Fenoy

David Plouffe speaks at Bridges Auditorium on Wednesday evening about working with President Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Plouffe has been praised as an innovator in the field of campaign management.

Mr. Plouffe said that it was Mr. Obama’s belief that Americans were too disconnected with their government and politics. His goal was to change that.

“To change the country one should move from the grassroots up to Washington,” Mr. Plouffe stated. “Washington will never change on its own.” That is why the campaign placed a great value on grassroots volunteers. “We used the grassroots network to move the message,” he said. It was these volunteers that, through conversation, explained to friends, neighbors, and communities the true meaning of Mr. Obama’s propositions.

The grassroots approach also provided the campaign with a solid fundraising strategy. “We relied on volunteer contribution,” Mr. Plouffe explained. “Average contribution was $85 and almost everyone who gave money volunteered.” Statistically, retirees gave most, followed by students.

“We put a lot of pressure on our supporters,” Mr. Plouffe said. “We held them accountable because we needed the job to be done.”

The unconventional use of technology in the 2008 campaign is considered one of its most valuable innovations. “Technology was married to the grassroots approach,” Mr. Plouffe said. New media like the Internet, email, and cell phone was heavily used to move the message. “Huge numbers of people gathered online to build groups and widen the circle,” Mr. Plouffe explained.

Emails were particularly successful because people could incorporate the information in their conversations with friends and relatives. “This is not the regular way of doing things,” Mr. Plouffe admitted, “but people don’t trust the media and they don’t trust the government; they trust the conversations they have with their neighbors down the street.”

Mr. Plouffe concluded the campaign’s biggest asset was the actual performance of the candidate. He addressed Mr. Obama’s relative lack of experience by saying that it was one of his advantages. Having spent less time in Washington, Mr. Obama was less used to the “conventional practices” established there.

“People were looking for something a little different,” Mr. Plouffe explained. “They were hungry for a president that would tell the truth about challenges we face and could rebuild our relationships with the world.”

Mr. Plouffe’s talk marked the inauguration of a lecture series program designed to bring high-profile speakers to Pomona College. The goal is to inform and inspire substantive conversations around important domestic and world issues.

—Savina Velkova