MVPs of the Obama Campaign

My debut post for this blog features my final thoughts on the 2012 election, organized in handy list form, since that seems to be the default method for presenting information on the Internet.  These are presented in rough chronological order, not rank order.  Here are, in my opinion, the MVPs of President Obama's reelection campaign.  You'll notice most of these actually have to do with the Republican side hurting itself.  Obama faced a stiff reelection challenge, and while in the end people voted for him and not the factors below, he was certainly aided by his opposition in what conventional wisdom would dictate was a prime opportunity for the GOP to retake the White House.

1.  The Other GOP Candidates
When my students last spring asked me if I thought Obama would be reelected, I told them that normally the odds would be against him due to the not-so-great economy.  However, I said that I believed he would be reelected because the Republican candidates were so weak.  When Mitt Romney was the shining star of a field that included Newt "Married to my former mistress but totally down with family values" Gingrich, Michelle "the State Department is full of Muslim terrorists" Bachmann, and Rick "Oops" Perry, it doesn't bode well for the general election.  Plus this company did Obama a huge favor by launching the flip-flopper and vulture capitalist attacks on Romney, which Obama's campaign simply continued.  The one candidate who really could have appealed to a broad audience was probably Jon Huntsman, but because he dared to serve under Obama as ambassador to China and say nice things about the President, he was anathema to the conservative base (see #2).  You could argue it was a master political move for Obama to give Huntsman a job, nullifying a potential challenger, but who knows if that factored into the decision.

2. The Conservative Base / Tea Party
Arguably more than any before it, this was the election where the conservative base came to represent the mainstream of the Republican Party.  In the end this turned off many potential voters, especially with regards to social conservatism.  It was also the year when conspiracy theories came to dominate a disturbingly large swath of Republican minds.  From Obama isn't a citizen, to Obama is a Muslim, to Obama rigged the unemployment numbers, to Obama is skewing the polls, such claims were no longer relegated to the fringe of the party - they received significant airtime on Fox News.  I think this also drove away a fair number of people more interested in reason and evidence than groundless theories.

3. Clint Eastwood
I watched the entire RNC on C-SPAN, therefore free of commentary, and found it a hate-filled disaster, but I'm biased.  The moment that stuck out to average Americans, however, was Clint Eastwood nonsensically debating an empty chair RIGHT BEFORE Romney's nomination speech.  That's bad news for Romney.  Throughout most of his speech "Eastwooding" was the hottest topic on Twitter.  That moment might have ruined any chance Romney had to connect with younger voters, especially since it could have been used to air a video package aimed at introducing Romney to the country and deflecting some of the attacks aimed at him by his primary challengers and the Obama campaign.  This incident also revealed some rather questionable judgement by the Romney campaign, which apparently decided that, in the most scripted political theater on earth, letting an old actor go on stage with an empty chair and say whatever he wanted was a fabulous idea.

4.  The Best Campaign Surrogates
Ok, this one actually has to do with the Democratic side.  No one the Republicans could put forward to support their guy could match the trifecta of Bill Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Joe Biden.  Clinton, who would probably easily win a 3rd term if he could run, laid it all out at the DNC, earning the moniker "Secretary of Explaining Stuff" and leaving loyal supporters wondering if they had just had sex with him.  Talk about energizing the base.  Michelle Obama is a graceful, brilliant First Lady; all the Right can do is complain that she dares to show off her guns by wearing sleeveless dresses.  And Joe Biden.  He's not liked in some liberal circles, but I believe he is a vital part of this administration.  To me he seemed the most sincere of anyone in the race; you can tell he actually cares about helping people.  He can connect to blue-collar workers and "average Joes" (pun intended) better than the President.  And yet his deep respect for Obama is obvious and you know he'll always have his back.  The Vice Presidential candidates in this race can be summed up in a tale of two photo ops.  Who would you rather have as your VP  - this one:



Or this one:



5.  Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock
In 2012 the contract that moderate Republicans made with hyper-conservative Christians back in the 80s and 90s came back to bite them in the ass.  It went like this: "Give us your votes, and we'll at least give lip service to your outdated social views.  But please don't voice them in public."  The rise of the Tea Party and its success in the 2010 midterms gave these social conservatives the courage they needed to stand apart from the moderates and even challenge them, as Mourdock did to Dick Lugar in Indiana.  However, when the electorate at large, and especially women, started hearing views such as "women have ways of preventing pregnancy from rape" and "rape babies are what God intended" it caused perhaps irrevocable damage to the Republican brand.  Paul Ryan had to run from his past of basically agreeing with these views and Romney never did establish a solid position on them (surprise).  The gender gap could've hardly been wider.

6.  Nate Silver
Nate's not involved in either campaign.  He's a polling analyst.  He uses real data and sound statistical models to forecast election results.  And through the scary days of early to mid October, Silver showed Obama's lead dwindling but never faltering.  Then, in the last two weeks of the campaign, his numbers improved steadily for Obama, leading to his remarkable result of predicting every state correctly.  Through the tough days, Silver's numbers gave comfort to Obama supporters, which I think helped prevent any complete meltdowns (unless your name is Andrew Sullivan) and keep the confidence needed to carry the election through to the one day that polls actually matter.

7.  Conservative Media
Fox News and the like have spent the past four years trying to convince anyone that would listen that Obama is the worst President ever (Sean Hannity's words, not mine).  They built an entire industry around it, and an impenetrable barrier - thought bubble, feedback loop, echo chamber, whatever - was erected, which no factual information that they didn't like could penetrate.  Much as Tony Montana in Scarface infamously "got high on his own supply," they started to believe their own crap.  This had disastrous effects on the Romney campaign.  First there was the 47% remark - wholly inaccurate, greatly damaging, and clearly picked up from right-wing talking points.  Then the sense of confidence rooted in conservative media's "guts" (screw Nate Silver and his "data") that a win was imminent penetrated the Romney camp to the point that it wasted precious time and resources at clutch time in a state like Pennsylvania, that was never really within reach.  Now, I expect there to be some cheerleading of course, and a close Romney victory was certainly feasible, but the shock expressed by Romney, Ryan, Fox, et al.  after the loss was truly astounding to anyone who had been paying attention to the actual polling trends.

8.  Chrysler and GM
Republicans like to blame Hurricane Sandy and Chris Christie for ruining Romney's momentum in the last week of the campaign (and if they brand Christie a traitor and ignore him in 2016 like they did this year with Huntsman, well, they won't have learned much).  The data (there's that pesky word again) show that any semblance of "Mitt-mentum" ended with the 2nd and 3rd debates, and Obama was again the favorite by the time Sandy rolled into town.  No, what I think hurt Romney more in the ninth inning was his outright lie about Chrysler moving Jeep production to China.  It may not have been the biggest national story, but it was big in Ohio, where many jobs are tied to the auto industry so voters there are well-informed about it.  Romney had gotten away with a lot of shenanigans up until this point, and apparently figured he was safe, but this claim was one lie too far.  Now, a car company normally doesn't want to get publicly involved in a presidential election - they want to sell cars to everybody.  So they were quiet when the auto bailout was criticized.  However, they might get involved when a claim is made that could potentially hurt their brand.  That's exactly what happened when Romney falsely claimed (again, picking it up from the right wing blogosphere) that Chrysler planned to move Jeep production to China.  Chrysler politely explained this wasn't true, but then Romney doubled down, airing an ad in Ohio making the same claim.  Chrysler took a more aggressive stance in refuting it, and then GM chimed in as well.  Then Chrysler gave its employees Election Day off.  To quote Rick Perry, "Oops."

9. David Axelrod
There's no question the Man with the Magic Mustache ran a 21st century campaign, grounded in technology and quantitative data (everyone take a drink).  There's a reason why he could confidently bet to shave his handlebars if Obama lost Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Minnesota.  The man had a plan and executed it to perfection.  On the other side you have Karl Rove, whose SuperPAC poured hundreds of millions of dollars into defeating Obama and other races, only to lose every single one he spent money in.  This, of course, culminated in his epic meltdown on live national television as the conservative thought bubble abruptly burst.

10.  The Obama for America ground game
OFA faced tougher competition this year than in 2008.  Obama voters supposedly weren't as enthusiastic as they had been.  The Romney campaign had an active get-out-the-vote operation, whereas McCain's efforts had been largely nonexistent.  OFA delivered when it counted, however, getting people to the polls for weeks in early voting states and urging them to stay in line on election day despite all obstacles.  There's a reason Obama broke down when thanking these hard-working volunteers.  He knew just how integral they were to his success.