Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Human Contact - Still An Electoral Imperative

Paul Waugh has produced an excellent analysis of the campaign, and concludes that an Obama win will be down to the superior organisation of his on the ground workers.  It's a reassuring thought that as we keep debating the impact of online technologies and social media, the one thing that still really works is actual people contact.  Commenting on a field study of the 2008 campaign conducted by Obama's then Ohio, now National, Campaign Director, Waugh writes:

The main conclusion was that the single most effective medium in reaching a potential Obama voter was not TV ads or glossy leaflets - it was contact from an enthusiastic human being.

There you go.  Keep tweeting, facebooking and emailing; but don't give up on making human contact.  The decimated parties of the UK might want to take note, and start building up their grassroots operations again.

Meanwhile, thanks to politics student Michael Kynaston for this heads up about Simon Tisdall's Guardian piece on all the factors that could still make for an Obama defeat.  Happy reading indeed.....

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