How Obama Won Iowa (or, the Strategy as I see It)

[alcibiades_mystery]

How did Obama win Iowa in the primaries? We heard a lot about this shortly afterwards, but it was soon eclipsed by the stunning Hillary victory in new hampshire. So, it may be time to revisit the question, especially since all current polls show that Obama's work there for the primaries is paying dividends for the general. According to all recent polls, Iowa is all but a lock for Obama/Biden. Now, people will tell you that Iowa always votes Dem, except for last time, but that would be a rather optimistic assertion. Iowa wasn't decided until the next morning, really, in 2000, and Bush carried it convincingly in 2004. So, what did Obama do?

He went small and local. Virtually every account discusses how microscopically the Obama campaign approached Iowa. Now, he had much more time to do it, and much less ground to cover, but there's a lesson there, and it probably explains what we're seeing now. Obama and Biden are both going small right now. Every venue you've seen them in since the convention has been virtually a micro-venue. Moreover, every campaign stop we've seen has ended with a significant Q&A session. On it's face, this may be disheartening to the many here, who want to see a 'strong response.' It looks low profile, probably because it is. But it seems to me that this is a very deliberate strategy right now. McCain, for his part, is going LARGE scale now, with these big rallies and canned speeches. It's strange to see the Obama campaign going the opposite direction. Small venues, up close with the audience, and taking questions. In light of the Palin phenomena, this strikes many DUers as crazy. Perhaps. But maybe crazy like a fox. The fact is that every time Obama went small bore on the campaign, voters responded.

As a trajectory, it seems to me that it's going to go like this: for the next four weeks, Obama and Biden will be doing these multiple small, personal events. They will be increasing the volume of their attacks on McCain/Palin, but these attacks look much more organic when they're delivered in the context of a Q&A, as we've seen for the last few days. Then, probably a month out from the election, they will begin to ease in the big rallies to really pump up the faithful. The ground will have been prepared for such events because the micro-approach will have worked the message through communities in a capillary manner. These large events will increase in intensity, with series of small events scheduled following the debates, a move that allows the Q&A to become about the debates. The last two weeks of the election will be high intensity big rallies, one after the other after the other, moving back to affirmative rhetoric after two weeks or so of constant attacks on McCain/Palin. That's how it will play it, it seems to me.

Now, you might not agree with this strategy, and many clearly don't. I think it's good management of mood, which, combined with massive organizational efforts on the ground (another feature of Iowa) just might work.

[rockymountaindem]

1. The thing is that strategy probably works best in a place like Iowa

in a situation where everybody's trying to reach out to the very last possible voter they can find, and where there is really only one set of issues. Right now he is running a nationwide campaign and therefore he needs to reach out to a broader, nationwide audience. In a state as small as Iowa, having a rally with 1500 people is really significant. In a place like PA, or in the broader national context, even 5000 people is not that many. If the point of the rallies is to fire up the base and get people pumped to volunteer for you, then at this point they need to be done on a grander scale, IMHO. If the point of rallies is to introduce your message unfiltered to large numbers of undecideds, than at this point I think the increased scale of the campaign calls for greater numbers at each event. Applying the same tactics that work in a small-market state that uses caucus primaries to the large, nationwide election may not be the best idea.

Also, it's really important now that we dominate the news cycle. I won't begrudge the campaign for laying low during the RNC, but now is the time to really start grabbing the headlines and doing/saying things the media can't ignore. I, for one, think that involves saying at least some nasty things about McCain, such as highlighting his history of irrational angry outbursts (even at people who are supposed to be his friends) and maybe starting a whisper campaign about his penchant for crude, offensive, sexist jokes. The thing that most worries me is that the Obama campaign, sticking with its "post-partisan" ideas, is going to miss the boat on the best ways to attack McCain on his supposed strengths. It sucks, but as we've seen in the last two elections, it seems that's what we're going to have to do in order to win.

[Hard Leftt]

2. Iowa

Cain is anti-ethanol AND insulted workers saying they wouldn't pick lettuce for 50 dollars an hour. Cain can FORGET Iowa. Iowa=Obama blowout.