Why Barack Obama won

Although the first black President of the USA is a huge and meaningful step, welcomed with a surprising dignity by John McCain and George Bush, this is not because of his being black that Barack Obama was elected, which is probably even more meaningful, but because of the precision and the impressive hard work of his campaign, in which every single detail was thought.

The Obama campaign's program was deliciously well prepared. Vague enough to allow a large target to identify, when Hillary Clinton' s program was too precise not to be boring and segmenting, it determined the keys points and brought really bright answers, turning the flaws of his proposals into strong qualities.
His being black and his lack of experience, which could have been his main handicaps, were connected to this powerful need of change after what is perceived as a failure by the Bush administration and used as a symbol to proove his ability to get the country to a new era.
His vote against the war in Irak was well used and completed by his willing to renforce the troops in Afghanistan, which avoided the risk of making him sounded as a weak pacifist and outlined the failure of Bush in those two wars.
His health care plan was not ambitious enough to scare the independent and republican voters.
His tax plan was well thought to speak to the middle-class, of which he took such a care since the financial meltdown, while John McCain remained silent about them, not even mentioning them during the debates.
Otherwise, he remained uncomfortable on moral issues, being unable to take a straight to the point stand, probably too afraid to take the risk to alienate voters. His positions on the death penalty, the gun control, the gay marriage, god, abortion, were confused, weak and coward as we saw on the faith forum. We may ask if he was disguising his point of view. His "blunder" about people "getting bitter and clinging to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations" sounded way more frank and sincere and was really more interesting. But the campaign is not conceived to let candidates being sincere and honest anyway and a brighter opponent than John McCain would have used this weak point of Obama's wanting to keep both parties happy.

After this program, he also worked on the form.
He took advantage of his beautiful skill of speech. He used it to rebound after Hillary Clinton's attacks about Jeremiah Wright during the primary and calm it down when it made him sounded too intellectual and elitist after his speech in Berlin, where he was not that convincing, probably because he has no good reason to be there and was smartly weakened and mocked by McCain.
He was able to mix up different levels in his speeches. Composed with touches of facts and symbols, politics and emotions, determination and attention, promises and compromises, all his speeches are build with the same technical pattern. Each of them is a story made up to allow people to identify and to hope.

His campaign did not forget the fundamentals of an election: the ground game.
They spin a tight web throughout the country: "The Obama campaign has broken the country into a collection of battleground states, which are dissected into precincts that are parceled one more time into neighborhood teams. (Ohio, for example, is divided into 1,231 neighborhoods.) And each of these teams, if the recruiting is up to speed, has a leader who, ideally, lives just down the block from all those doors that need to be knocked on." They deploy lawiers to control the polls (Kerry neglected this point in 2004). His rejecting the public financing allowed his campaign to raise a amount which has reach an unprecedented level. And they used the most aggressive marketing strategies and the opportunity of the new technology to do this: social networks, mobile phones to keep people tuned and get them involved.
They offered for instance to win a dinner with Obama or a backstage pass on Election night to encourage donations; they reveal the choice of the running mate by texting those who would give their names, collecting this way plenty of contacts; they made up contests, counting the events hosted, the calls made, the doors knocked, the amount raised to motivate the members of my.barackobama.com, as at McDonalds; and they strongly encourage registration of new voters...

We may notice that if the Obama team spent such an energy to work on every single detail, they avoided the negative campaigning, despite the asks of a lot of democrats in August to fight back (the memory of a Kerry too weak was persistent). They launched a site to fight against the rumors (the members of my.barackobama.com were frequently asked to send disclaimers emails to every kind of people) but mostly refused the low blows, saying, for instance, that the issue about Sarah Palin's daughter's pregnancy was "off limits".
After the financial crisis, Obama's image of seriousness, dignity and calm turned out to be reassuring in storm times and gainful for him.

This campaign was a really beautiful deployment of skill and hard work. We may regret that in those times where probably any democrat would have been elected, as Bill Clinton was close to suggest in The View, Barack Obama's program is so shy and not ambitious enough, not taking enough advantage of this republican tiredness.

Barrack Obama snake charmer

The McCain campaign is pathetically splitting somehow, scapegoating Palin, talking about her as a "Diva", a "whack job", a "rogue", which is not entirely false since she seems to distance herself from those friendly advisers to aim at 2012, or frankly jump from the ship:



Meanwhile, Barack Obama improves his tactical position:

He offensively struggles in the republican states.

He has given his "closing arguments":



Where he sticks to the economics, which turned out to be such a favorable matter for him, and insists on his "change" point.

Then he indulged himself in buying a half-hour tv ad:


This ad was definitely not a surprise, same targets, same strategy: riding the wave of the economics, charming the swing states by choosing stories of people living in Missouri, Ohio and New Mexico and giving the final speech in Florida and most of all reassuring people about Barack Obama with plenty of endorsements.
This huge move even avoids the risk of being called megalomaniac by giving way to simple people, making Obama looking in service of someone else.

They may argue about Barack Obama's stepping back on the withdrawal in Iraq; the weakness of his health care plan compare to Hillary Clinton's one; his unability to balance the budget...

But this is not about politics, this is about entertainment, marketing and worship... Barack Obama doesn't have a precise plan to reform the country, or at least didn't express the beginning of it within almost two years of campaigning. He's charming, promissing, feeding hope and belief, story telling... And this is a very beautiful story.

John McCain is done

We may see in front of us the consequences of the so-called "momentum". And we may see it enough to determine how it consists: confidence. John McCain lost his confidence few weeks ago. He is not convincing because, and perhaps only because, he doesn't seem to be convinced anymore.

While Barack Obama staid focus, stuck to his lines, went on his campaign, without paying attention to the ups and downs of the polls, the Biden's blunders, nor the republican attacks, ending up making an impression of a ground swell moving on; John McCain seems to have tried to use a momentum to improve his campaign, surfing on the waves, going up, shooting from the hips, playing the maverick card when the polls backed him, and following them down with the financial meltdown. He now appears to be swept away. Hesitant, confused, doubtful.

His campaign had so much skill to take every opportunity, whatever their hypocrisy or their lies, from the forum of the faith, then the RNC Convention or the pick of Sarah Palin, to their arrogance in redefining the meaning of change to make it fit to McCain, which almost succeeded until the financial crisis. The last smart move was McCain's suspending his campaign. Too bad for him, he suspended his suspending. David Letterman's making fun at his hesitations announced the end.

The McCain strategy turns out now to reveal all its flaws.

McCain struggles hard to try to get back this momentum, this confidence, he needs to go on, but the opportunities become rare and the margins narrow. His last attempts sound desperate as his critical tone against George Bush to try to distance himself from him or his Joe the plumber gimmick, his repeating over and over Obama will increase taxes or also his playing the scaremonger card, throwing terrorism, race, confusion or anything in the garbage at Obama (check this page out to count how many McCain's ads are positives).

Today, on "Meet the Press" he seemed tired, unable to make a point anymore, struck. Does he think everything is lost yet? That's however how it felt.

Why can't McCain get back his coolness, his sense of humor, his straight to the point way of talking? Why didn't he stick to his line while his campaign suspension to make it believable? Why didn't he distance himself from George Bush way before, letting Sarah Palin talking to the republican base, which was the only thing she was useful to? Why all his qualities appear to be flaws?

The McCain campaign chose a short-run moves strategy, perfect to make a momentum up, but they turn out to be too short, while Barack Obama made a campaign on a long run, no fuss, no moves, which proves to be solid and reliable.

Are the McCain campaign advisers going to be able to throw one of those clever trick they are good at during the week before us?

When the conservatives stop acting dumb

Colin Powell strongly and solemnly endorsed Barack Obama today on "Meet the press".

He went over the main points of this campaign: he deplored the negative tone of the McCain campaign, the lack of judgement in the pick of Sarah Palin, the confusion of McCain about economy and the republican party's sliding toward the right, which makes McCain become "narrower and narrower", while Barack Obama leads an "inclusive campaign".

According to Colin Powell, Obama displays "a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity" and "a depth of knowledge" in his approach.

Colin Powell developped in a really thoughtful, complete and convincing way his points: Obama's lack of experience? He will be well surrounded. This muslim situation? He's not muslim and what is the problem about being muslim? Colin Powel took time to tell a very touching story about a young american muslim who gave his life in Irak... This other situation about Obama's linking to William Ayers? "It's over the top" he said after the taping... He even deplored the robocalls launched by the McCain campaign... An afro-american for President? This is a good thing, not only for black people...

This grave endorsement must have sent shivers down McCain Campaign's spine. But would it be enough for them to stop playing around?

Did John McCain screw up by saying he screwed up?

We underlined how McCain's hesitations to suspend his campaign were a turning point after what he lost his credibility. His canceling his appearance on the Late show was the worst idea his campaign had, since they gave the opportunity for David Letterman to make fun at him by pointing he stayed in New York... McCain had obviously to move on... But I wonder how many people work in his campaign? And how many hours did they waiste to build different strategies, to find out some excuses, to devise some unbelievable stories and to end up making up this move: go back on the Late show, make no explanation, no excuse, just say: "I screwed up" and hope it will work?

McCain and Obama: both casual people

Both candidates John McCain and Barack Obama happen to be normal and casual people at this Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner... They both have to be polite and hypocrite, doing boring things while pretending to have fun... They might have even enjoyed this dinner , being flattered by so many "distinguished", "influential" and conceited persons' surrounding them.

By the way they both take the opportunity to score some points in their campaigns: McCain regained his sense of humor and Obama, after making a kind of excuses for attending a party while a terrible crisis, made fun at his second name and the rumors about his origins...

Joe the plumber

I didn't drop any line here since a while. I happen to have a life, sorry, too information gets easily alianating and anyway the last Townhall debate was... boring...

But the third and last debate between Barack Obama and John McCain happened yesterday. The confidence of Obama was strong enough to make fun of every McCain's smart or tough move, for whom everything appears to be too late and doesn't worth the trouble anymore.

For those who didn't get what was this "Joe the plumber" gimmick during the debate, here is a video of Joe Wurzelbacher raising a question to Barack Obama who muddles through this by taking a rare long time to answer and explaining really brightly all the advantages of his tax plan, even for Joe who will pay more taxes but "would" have pay less during the last 25 years... Is this conditional and hypothetical past cut convincing enough?

Given the fuss the medias are making today, studying every single record of Joe the Plumber, who turns out to have lied somehow, John McCain seems to still have his ability to launch effective, but maybe useless, screens of smoke...

Vice-presidential debate: strategies and margins

I knew people do read coffee ground, even though I still don't know what they actually read, but I happen to hear others read eyebrows:



More seriously, since no one was expecting anything of Sarah Palin, after the National Review's article or the SNL's sketches, but her to wipe the floor, she did, of course, a really good job. I was impressed by her memory's ability and her reading so fast the notes she was probably helped to write.

Joe Biden hadn't such a margin: he avoided to attack her, which would have been perilous, because she's a woman and also because this lack of experience issue could have been used by Palin to backfire on Obama. He chose to focus on attacking McCain, which was the more sure target he had. He probably did the most he could do.

When a quality turns out to be a flaw

Poll shows John McCain is weakened while Barack Obama significantly leads.

In times of crisis, people usually turn to the republican, who are supposed to be more reassuring, as we saw the Bush campaign using 9-11 against John Kerry.

John McCain is known, and makes him known, as someone who shoots from the hips, while Barack Obama is considered to be an intellectual. We remember on the faith forum how Obama's considering every single aspects of a matter before answering to a question works against his own interests and how the straight to the point answers of McCain succeeded to convince.

But it appears in this financial crisis that what was a quality tuns out to be a flaw and vice-versa. The McCain's shooting from the hips habit makes hims look fluster and incoherent while Obama's calm and controlled mind sounds trustworthy.

Even though economy is a really unfavorable subject for the republican, the McCain's strategy was really bad managed and his suspending his camapaign sounded more like a desperate move than a tough decision since he was not able to stick to his line.

McCain's strategy seems to use short-run moves to create a momentum. The impact of his Sarah Palin's pick is now lowering, and even backfiring on him. He needs a fresh smoke screen to stay tuned in the race.

Bailout rejected: Politics or Management?

House Voted ‘No,’ 228-205 for highly political reasons : this crisis threatens an economic and political basis: the free-market.

Republican, like Jeb Hensarling, argue that "the country was on a 'slippery slope toward socialism'." He explains: "If we bail out risky behavior, we will soon see even riskier behavior". And he's right. Considering the free-market logic, to his merit, he's coherent.

This bailout is a band-aid made up in too much haste, which betrays the principles of deregulation and make the State plays a role is not supposed to play according to them. Changing the rules of the game will change the game.

Either the whole system needs a thorough review or it has to be let follow its own rules.

This crisis happens during a presidential race. This is the greatest opportunity to raise questions about going on or not in this system. Which role has to play the State? Which deregulation? To what extent? This is a fundamental matter.

And I'm surprised that both candidates are so caureful to bypass this debate. They are both preoccupied by putting the finishing touches of their own styles of campaigning and management: John McCain was focused on showing himself off and Barack Obama was "inclined to work the phones behind the scenes". This article underlines: "Mr. McCain, who came of age in a chain-of-command culture, showed once again that he believes that individual leaders can play a catalytic role and should use the bully pulpit to push politicians. Mr. Obama, who came of age as a community organizer, showed once again that he believes several minds are better than one, and that, for all of his oratorical skill, he is wary of too much showmanship."

But is this only an issue of management?

This Sunday, McCain said nothing more than this vague declaration: "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with" on ABC's This Week, while Obama only talked about his participating to the negotiations and the principles he proposed to make the plan better on Face the Nation:





As we saw, their moves weren't useless, since the Paulson plan was improved. But eluding a fundamental question, which will anyway come back in the aftermath of this bailout, is an opportunity, which the debate between the candidates as the debate in the country will miss.

McCain's gambling past: end of bets

Since we may say this financial crisis began because of a kind of gambling with mortgages, I assume McCain's gambling past, which the New York Times pointed yesterday, is quiet ironical.

More seriously, this article underlines: "Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors."

1st one-on-one debate: Both candidates stuck to their lines

Maybe because Barack Obama was too well-prepared for this first presidential debate and McCain threw up screens of smoke: they seemed to stick to the lines of their campaigns.

McCain saved times on the economic issues and had not a lot to say, except this overused point : Barack Obama will increase taxes... He finally succeeded to slide the debate to Iraq.

He insisted on how Barack Obama does not understand, how naive he is...

And he once again plaid the POW card at the end.

Barack Obama may not have taken enough advantage about this long part on economy, which could have been a great opportunity for him...

His answer about his gaffe concerning his meeting Ahmadinejad without preconditions was well elaborated by really good advisers, who smartly linked it to a Kissinger declaration, and begins to be convincing:



His referencing McCain's confusion about Prime Minister of Spain Zappatero was well done and funny.

His insisting on his ability to restore US image to the world was good, since polls seem to agree with that point.

But all of it was made up before with his advisers and he may not have stretched out enough on this debate and reacted to John McCain.

An agressive campaign of screen of smoke, without any content but stunt on the one hand and on the other hand such an uptight effort to prove how ready he is... Nothing really new though...

By the way, when you insist that much to prove something, doesn't it turn out people see more the effort than the point you're trying to make?

MCain's shambles

Suspending his campaign was a bright idea of the McCain's advisers, since no other move seemed to be possible for him. But, as any stunt, it asks the man to stick to his line to be convincing.
This shambles on the Late show underlines how dishonnest this posture was...

Barack Obama resists

The Obama campaign found a good idea to answer to McCain's skillful move: "It's going to be part of the president's job to deal with more than one thing at once." This may lower the impact of the surprise by making fun of it.

Morevover, Barack Obama insists not to postpone the debate and starts to connect the favorable subject of foreign policy to the more dangerous matter for McCain: the economy, by the smart bias of the global economy:



This could forecast a difficult moment for McCain, if Obama succeeds to make this point in the debate and to urge him to take an impossible position on the economy. But McCain is warned now...

John McCain's surprising trick

We saw how uncomfortable the crisis was for John McCain, unable to take a frank position without either alienating a part of his base or sounding too close to the Bush administration. His own record disproves his arguments somehow anyway.

The McCain campaign finds a skillful idea to wriggle out of this positioning deadlock: suspend campaigning! And to minimize the damages of McCain's taking position, they called for a joint statement with Barack Obama, using the need of a bipartisan solution as an excuse.

The surprise is delicious, creates a movement (we saw how the republican camp uses movement) and makes McCain sounded like a determined leader, even if he determined nothing but moving, actually suspending any movement...

to raise or to lower expectations before the debate : two different strategies

The Obama campaign seems to raise expectations before the first one-on-one debate.

They schedule three days for "intensive preparation" and call for hosting "Debate watch parties":



Of course, this is a part of the whole Obama strategy to imply and motivate people, but it also makes a fuss about it.

John McCain chose the opposite posture and lower expectations by praising Obama's eloquence.

Barack Obama used this tactic before his acceptance speech, intensifying the moment by preparing it in solitude... But those expectations may have been to high at that time and his speech good, but not enough good, not surprising enough to come up to them, as the post DNC bounce in the polls may suggest, since it was minor than the post RNC one...

McCain's embarrassing situation : where are the democrats?

After the fuss around Sarah Palin, whose nomination was close to succeed to make the whole journey of Barack Obama looks dusty, this economic crisis opens more difficult times for John McCain, who looses all his margins on this subject. Do democrats take enough advantage of this crisis?

We know John McCain can not afford to move too far away from a part of his base, who has supported deregulation and probably still do. As a strong supporter of deregulation himself for over two decades, as The Obama campaign recalls it lately, he wouldn't be persuasive anyway. (The New York Times underlines how his campaign manager was paid by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to defend them against stricter regulations). But, of course, he also can not clearly back the unpopular George Bush administration.

We remember he avoided the worst at the RNC when George Bush canceled his appearance, because of Gustav, and stayed at Washington to endorse John McCain. The point on which he really needed to make a difference without alienating his base was the war in Iraq and the "success" of the Surge he supported was a lucky and well-used event for him. Now his difficulty of positioning comes back with this fundamental political issue.

The most difficult is for him to explain how he could be for regulation by now after having supported deregulation and how he could accept a 700 billions $ bailout without sounding socialist, admiting the policy he supported failed and backing an expansive plan of the Bush administration... Most of all, he needs to sound connected to the people who struggle everyday.

His attempts go from his saying he does not regret deregulation on "60 minutes" to his hesitations to be critical of bailout plan or his try to raise doubts about Obama to throw up a smoke screen.



He must be trying to sweep it under the rug and waiting for the emergence of a more favorable subject in the debates... (the first debate between the two candidates, which is coming on friday, will not be on economy but on foreign policy by the way)

The democrats seem not to take enough advantage of McCain's embarrassing situation. They launch a weak attack with this ad where they link this crisis to the Health Plan issue. Of course, this is a favorable subject for Obama, maybe overused already, but the link is not accurate enough to be powerful and the potential of the crisis of McCain's positioning could be better used to underline his incoherence, fall him out with his own base, question his record and make him sound out-of-touch, and not only with computers as this another worthless ad underscores, so "terrible" said even Joe Biden, before withdrawing.




Are democrats going to let John McCain save time ?

An example of the McCain campaign's strategy...

The McCain campaign's redefining the idea of "change" to make it match to their "maverick" slogan is a smart strategic trick. The "change", according to the republican camp, is the ability to reform "across party lines", as Tim Pawlenty said in this interview.

The strategy bypasses McCain's problems with his conservative base, and lower the impact of Obama's main point.

You can watch with this segment of "This Week", how Obama struggles against this subtle confusion, tries to save his own definition of change by separating it from the bi-partisanship and, since he's brought in this bi-partisan issues, tries to convince of his ability to lead "across the lines" without alienating his own base :

You see the skill of the trap ? How it conquers every margin of Obama? I assume this is an example of how democrats are not offensive enough by letting republican redefining and confiscating their trumps...

McCain's flip-flop on the economy

How McCain was embarrassed by his claiming "the fundamentals of our economy are strong" is delicious.

His several attempts to try to justify this gaffe and to make it sounded different that it does are a real beautiful exercise of trial and error in a deployment of a strategy.

Finally, he succeeded to connect it to a more favorable matter, saying the "fundamentals" are the workers themselves. This point must have been suggested by a clever economic adviser. But isn't it too late to be convincing?

Is the McCain campaign running against Sarah Palin?

I'm not sure Sarah Palin's refusing to testify in this "Troopergate" is such a good idea for her long-term career and I wonder if the McCain Campaign's advisors are just saving time and minimizing the damage for the campaign... Do they only care for their own interest? Are they ready to sacrifice her career for this campaign? I'm just wondering...