In order to understand how President Obama won re-election, one needs to travel inside his campaign’s brain. There, behind the traditional campaign tactics of television ads and political rallies, sit the sophisticated statistical models that enabled the campaign to effectively persuade voters to support President Obama.
On Wednesday’s show, author Sasha Issenberg joined Alex and the panel to break down Team Obama’s modern approach to campaigning. Interestingly, it has its roots in techniques used by former President George W. Bush’s campaign, which turned to consumer data to gather information about potential voters. Issenberg pointed out that as Republicans failed to further refine methods developed about a decade ago, Democrats took what the Republicans started and brought it to a whole new level, thanks to the work of brilliant behavioral and political scientists.
As a result, “the Democratic political brain, campaigning brain, is growing,” Issenberg said, as the Republican brain tries to learn how to move beyond being the party of the past.
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