“WHY DID OBAMA WIN? WHY DID MCCAIN LOSE? “
INTRODUCTION
This is one of the biggest victories in the terms of electing first African-American President, significant attendance of young voters, record-breaking fundraising, massive ground-gaming and prosperous digital campaigning.
What was the success of Obama? First, his exceptional oratorical, communicative ability and characteristic have played a crucial role in the victory. In this way, he could attract many first time voters and reach out a rich palate of American diversity– women, blacks, Hispanics, whites-old people. He inspired people with his story and campaigned in every state, allowing people to see and hear his message. His medium has shaped his message and the message, “change”, was perfectly delivered. Significantly, his digital campaigning and fundraising skills provided him a much advantage over McCain.
How about McCain’s failure? Why did he lose? This was an inevitable circumstance because he did not really talk and listen to people. As a veteran politician for almost 30 years he expected to know how to play the game. He could have been successful with his strategies if we were in 1980’s. Yet today’s trends need a politician who knows how to communicate. Therefore his conventional campaigning strategies that focused on top to bottom strategies, did not meet with the demands of the 21st century political communication.
In this paper, I’ve analyzed both candidates’ performances with the following aspects of present- day political campaigning communication from understanding the context of their campaigns; developing and delivering the message, consistency of the message, fundraising, ground-game, debates, digital campaigning strategies and crisis management.
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION AND FUNDRAISING STRATEGIES
The digital strategies have played vital role during the 2008 Elections. Similar to Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004 digital fundraising has bubbled and millions of people contributed not only money but also opinions, advertisements, websites, videos, surveys to the election. People have run their own campaigns across the country from suburbs to big cities and connected to each other with only one click. As a result we have seen the transition that presents understanding of new communication style from old school to 21st century political campaigning. The magic words: social media websites, blogs, search engines, video podcasts have highlighted in both candidates’ campaigns. Therefore a candidate who has more knowledge on the internet and digital tools well-understood an importance of digital communication . As a result he has won.
On the one hand President-Elect Barack Obama was younger and web savvy. Beyond the internet, he was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, YouTube, and user-generated content. Marc Andreessen, coauthor of Mosaic, founder of Netscape, and co-founder of social network Ning who had a 90 minute on one on one meeting with Obama early in March 2007 affirms that Obama already knew how to combine politics and digital communication. “In particular, the Senator was personally interested in the rise of social networking, Facebook, Youtube, and user-generated content, and casually but persistently grilled us on what we thought the next generation of social media would be and how social networking might affect politics — with no staff present, no prepared materials, no notes. He already knew a fair amount about the topic but was very curious to actually learn more.”[1]
Instead of classic top-down method of controlling the message, Obama let people to create their own messages. He added a new high-tech gateway to his campaign strategy by encouraging his supporters to interact online and run their own campaigns. Consequently the new strategy has brought many positive feedbacks to his campaign. Those supporters have brought millions of others and the campaign has reached to massive online database as well as donations.
Moreover his expanded online reach, by collecting names, e-mail addresses and hometowns gave him a flexibility to mobilize and accumulate people for campaign events and speeches. The rich database has also allowed Obama’s campaign to know and touch even people’s specific demands on local base. His campaign could also generate people who were not really involved in politics before. Michael Cheney who studies online campaigning, a professor of communications and economics in University of Illinois clarifies how Obama campaign was distinguish and successful on the digital strategies. “The online strategy only works if candidates are willing to give up the traditional top-down method of controlling their message, letting supporters craft their own and giving them a stake in the process. Obama’s events generated a few thousand new e-mails and addresses. Obama can mobilize people when he needs to. ” [2]
On the other hand Sen. John McCain and his campaign have looked less accomplished on digital strategies throughout his campaign. He drew a politician profile who
hires people just to create his web sites and do fundraising, organizing and voter outreach programs. He did not understand and elevate importance of digital world.
In a contrast to Obama, McCain was not really attached to online crowds. His internet knowledge questioned many times. Yet being a big political figure since 1982, he was a well-known candidate and he could have used this advantage to convey and consolidate his messages effectively throughout the internet. According to Pew research on both candidates’ online performances, McCain’s campaign web site has had fewer bells and whistles, with fewer videos and fewer social networking capabilities than Obama’s. [3] Johanna Blakley, deputy director of The Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication also points out weakness of McCain’s online outlook. “I would not be surprised if the McCain design team realized that a flashy, Flash-driven site might alienate a group of voters looking for something simple and honest—an antidote to the slick, new poster boy, Barack Obama. This old-school site designs may be a calculated choice.”[4]
Overall Obama’s online operation broke down the numbers and beat the pants off McCain. The great promise of Obama’s digital campaign was that online fundraising. Suchlike Howard Dean’s success in 2004, 3 million donors made a total of 6.5 million online donations for Obama adding up to more than $500 million and they were in increments of $100 or less. Here are some other significant outcomes of Obama’s digital strategies. According to ADD Adult Strengths, there are nearly 6,000 % more pages on Barack Obama’s website than John McCain’s. 3,032% more hits for Barack Obama than John McCain and Barack Obama’s Facebook page had nearly 4 times more followers and posts than John McCain’s page. There are 147 comments on Obama’s MySpace page but none on John McCain’s. Barack Obama cranked out 10 times more tweets than John McCain, had 2254% more followers on Twitter. Obama had nearly twice as many search results for his name as John McCain, and more than 5 times as many videos posted on YouTube. [5]
THE MESSAGE
Joseph S. Tuman gives definition of successful political message in his book. “A message with traction is a message that succeeds with voters, mostly because it appeals to them, resonates with them, or perhaps touches them in some way. More importantly, as the word traction implies, the message also succeeds because it becomes one the voter remembers-hopefully all the way to election day.” [6] In political oratory, effectiveness of the message strictly depends on not only the message itself but also its consistency which requires speaking with one voice, not putting out messages that conflict with each other, and sticking to a single message long enough so that your audience comes to automatically associate the message with your campaign. Once we look at both presidential candidates’ abilities to show, control and deliver their messages during the election, we clearly see that Obama has had a huge advantage over McCain. Despite minor alterations he played the “message game” with these all proper components. In contrast his rival, McCain has struggled with his muddled messages in the sense of almost every issue and made a lot of flops throughout his campaign.
Obama’s prominent message “change” has well-matched with the moment in the sense of his profile as a new “change agent” and worrisome current economic, political conditions of the country. Nothing could have been more appealing than “change” and “hope” after 8 years of fallacies. Obama’s chief campaign adviser David Axelrod had a phrase that he often used to describe this approach: America was looking for “the remedy, not the replica”. [7] Almost everything about Obama’s campaign was representing a completely new transformation in politics. His premise built on one simple message: “Bush policies have failed and McCain is carrying his tattered banner of a failed administration.” Obama has executed consistency of this message from the beginning until the end. His well-applied core message has provided him coherent and apprehensive look and gave him a more flexibility to deliver his other messages on economy, domestic issues and foreign relations.
As a young, passionate and flawless orator, Obama’s sole disadvantage was his lack of inexperience. However it turned out successfully because his message was refusing all features of old style politics. He was using the words “promise”, “believe”, “hope”, “future”, “enough” and “dream” very often. Eventually these words have remained to resonate in everyone’s ears during the campaign and reassured the voter’s expectations.
Moreover Obama campaign had ads that were more carefully and strategically crafted than McCain’s. Many of them have succeeded to disqualify McCain’s messages that were not representing any change but as a successor of Bush administration. Obama’s campaign executed every possible component to show that McCain can not overtly break with Bush.
On the other hand as a veteran politician, McCain has remained with many rhetorical fallacies, flip-flops, contradictory and shifting messages in addition to Bush factor. So, he could not be successful to create and centralize his message that ensures well-suited correlation with his opinions. Therefore his messages have failed to persuade people’s opinions on “change”.
Certainly he could not help the fact that Bush was so unpopular. Therefore McCain’s core message, “I’m more experienced and I am the maverick” did not say much as a compelling idea especially for who had voted for Bush %90 of the time. Vast amount of people in the country believed that the country was on wrong direction because of Bush’s policies.
Once we look his muddled messages and implementations we see many unfortunate examples on the checklist. One of the biggest negative turnouts in his campaign was his Vice President choice. He attacked Obama’s inexperience and then chose a running mate who is unqualified to step in and serve as president, if needed. Then he became a supporter of the ideas that he was oppose to in the past. For instance, he had opposed to offshore oil drilling as it is too risky and short-sighted then he promoted it as an answer to energy independence. The other most damaging flop, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, was hard to sell especially when big financial companies were collapsing one by one. On the day before the Federal Reserve System bailed out AIG with an $85 billion loan and McCain insisted that taxpayers’ money cannot be used to rescue AIG. Then the next day he flopped again and sad it was right to protect the millions of Americans who have accounts at AIG.
As a result the muddled and uncontrolled message was one of the major reasons for McCain’s failure. Jeff Berkowitz gives further explanation on the issue: “McCain campaign had no central positive theme. What was McCain’s message? ‘I am not Bush’. Kind of like Nixon saying, ‘I am not a crook.’ Hardly words of inspiration. McCain had themes for his campaign. He had themes for his campaign but no central theme. Country First? More a bumper sticker than a theme. Further, McCain did not quite understand or believe in his campaign’s core arguments.” [8]
Coincidentally the history has repeated. As John Kerry defeated in 2004 by GOP for being a “flip-flopper”, this time one of the biggest GOP veterans, McCain labeled by the same.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
During the election both candidates have faced many obstacles that urged them to make instant decisions and give immediate responses. As a fundamental crisis during the elections, financial meltdown has played a crucial role to look at both candidates’ crisis management abilities. Also various verbal gaffes delivered by candidates have undercut their campaign messages. For instance, “lipstick on a pig”, “the fundamentals of our economy are strong”, “Joe the Plumber”, “Obama’s socialist Tax plan”, “ACORN”, “ Rev. Wright”, “Bill Ayers” controversies. Eventually the candidate who controlled his temper and messages during theses crisis and surpassed the other candidate had reasonable advantage managing the crisis.
For instance Sen. Barack Obama expressed a full-confidence when financial rescue package controversies have emerged. What he has done was acting calm and not postponing the debate or suspending his campaign. Obama told voters at a campaign event in Denver, Colorado, that it’s important to stay calm, because things are never smooth in Congress. “There are going to be some bumps and trials and tribulations and ups and downs before we get this rescue package done,” he said. “I’m confident that we are going to get there, but it’s going to be a little rocky.”[9]
Then he arranged a meeting with high-level economic staff and gave a look like a president. He also called his rival McCain and asked him to release a joint statement about principles that both men wanted to see in financial rescue package. He knew that McCain had stumbled when he made a decision to suspend his campaign. It was very clever political maneuver that ended with Obama’s victory. He did not only reassure the voters as a confident candidate but also disposed McCain’s crisis management strategy.
On the other side, McCain was repeatedly accusing Obama and Democrats of putting “politics ahead of country”, but did not conduct any appreciable message or proposition to conquer the crisis. Instead he played a political gambit that aimed to illustrate a good example of bipartisan leadership. Then he offered to postpone the debate and suspend his campaign. However people were expecting a strong message that he is able to manage the crisis. As Boston Globe’s editorial called it a “Stunt”, McCain could not manage this term successfully. “This impulsive stunt made him appear unsteady and underprepared, too. America can work through a financial crisis and handle a campaign at the same time. In politics as on Broadway, the show must go on.”[10]
DEBATES
As we have seen in three presidential debates, both candidates have profiled real contrasts on their debate styles and presentation skills. The body language that they’ve used was also opposite of each other. At the end, Obama swept all three debates. [11]This was inevitable result for who represented the future and not the past with his messages and was able to use his body and voice effectively.
Obama gave more cerebral, reflective responses; because McCain gave gut-level, immediate responses throughout the debates. While Obama was displaying average people’s problems and generalizing the topics, McCain was attacking Obama’s characteristics and not talking about his policies. His attacks contained platitudes sometimes. For instance “That One” comment was one of them. [12]The “Otherness” was the last thing that McCain needed to show his maturity and experience to the voters. While Obama seemed even-tempered and pleasant to McCain’s attacks, McCain seemed tired, out of touch and angered.
Moreover, Obama’s body language and charisma were invincible in contrast to McCain’s. He maintained his energy and rhythm until the end. Unlike Obama, McCain has suffered to give audience a real smile and hand gesture. He could not use communication skills effectively as much as Obama could.
THE GROUND GAME
Another victory of Obama during the elections was his ground game. His campaign efficiently combined digital strategies, fundraising and door to door system in 50 states with thousands of volunteers. He reached out even most rural counties in the country and got people’s votes.
Like Bush in 2004, Obama has taken his fight directly into suburban and rural GOP strongholds in order to curb McCain’s potential margins. For instance Obama had 82 offices in Ohio, one of the biggest battlegrounds in the elections, nearly twice as many as McCain. Labor unions backed his effort with more than 12,000 volunteers. On the contrary, a ground game was absent from McCain’s campaign, even in their stronghold, Ohio.
Moreover Obama’s “New Organizers” campaigners, as a new progressive movement has established “Neighborhood Teams”. It was a perfect example of bottom to top campaigning. [13]
As a result Obama’s ground game strategy was able to register millions of new voters for the November election. The founder and CEO of New Media Strategies, Pete Snyder gives further evidence to explain Obama’s ground game success. “The Obama camp recognized that something very different was going on here. It threw out many of the old political adage and assumptions, including the granddaddy of them all, Americans don’t tune into elections until after Labor Day. Obama’s campaign geared its online and off-line engagement and advertising to build on this unprecedented early interest and mobilized it into an effective ground game to get out their vote.” [14]
