Despite being the incumbent President, Barrack Obama and his re-election team were faced with a tall challenge in trying to secure enough votes to keep him in office. After the Great Recession of the mid 2000s, a major stimulus effort and low interest rates were not able to revive the American economy. Entering the election, President Obama faced an economy with 7.9 percent unemployment and 23 million Americans out of work. He also faced a Republican candidate with a highly successful career in the private sector, something President Obama has not had.
Governor Romney did not help himself by staking out some policy positions to meet certain extremist elements of his party and by making some widely publicized verbal gaffes. Nevertheless, the economic headwinds faced by President Obama made this a tight race that could have gone either way. President Obama was able to gain re-election by 4 million votes. While some people will point to the gaffes and policy positions of the Republican Party, one of key reasons for Obama’s victory was the team of computer wizards who helped mastermind the victory.
“If you look at the numbers, we raised more money online this time than last time, had more donors, more volunteers, registered more people to vote online, and did all kinds of revolutionary stuff through Facebook and Twitter,” stated Teddy Goff, digital director for Obama for America in a recent article in Businessweek. Based on my understanding of the work they did, the Obama team was able to outperform the Romney team in three areas:
1. Data Mining
2. Marketing, particularly social media marketing
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