The Joke Of the McCain Ground Game Revealed
We have all read the stories on the poor McCain ground game but now the facts come out.
Quotes abounded as to how many calls they were making etc and my suspicions were that these included robo calls and were in all likelihood mostly robo calls. God knows that is all we got and we got several a day last week here in GA.
From Marc Ambinder:
At the National Press Club on Wednesday, RNC chairman Mike Duncan crowed about how the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign had contacted 30 million individual voters directly. (This figure includes those robocalls.)
Impressive.
But the Obama campaign / Democratic National Committee turnout program contacted more than double that amount -- about 68 million, according to a Democratic officials.
Now I have managed sales people all my life and this strikes me like the difference in the ones that failed vs. the ones that succeeded. it is pretty simple and a good analogy here.
The failures would count sales calls as those where they left messages or left behind a brochure and could never understand why they failed. Their sales pipelines would include things that were wishes and hopes not hard and fast facts they got from their customers.
Those that succeeded actually were relentless in directly talking to prospects and following up until they did. Messages did not count. Their pipelines tended to be smaller but had facts to back up their inclusion on a report.
Most of the Obama calls were in person and tracked in detail as to whether messages were left, direct contact, number of contacts etc.. I know as I made a lot of them online and in our office. Sounds like a really well managed sales organization.
Meanwhile we see this latest where the RNC guy "crowed" over their results and heard Rick Davis bragging about how they mad 3-4X more "voter contacts: in Ohio the week before the election than Bush did in 2004.
Hmmm, who won? I do not even think they realize that their methodology, tracking and metrics were wrong and all along they were kidding themselves, their supporters and the media that touching people with recorded hate messages was productive.
I'll bet Rove and Bush actually counted things differently too...and they won as well.
Marketing 101, eh? Time to send these guys back to remedial school.
November 7, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
How anyone would count robo calls as voter contact is CRAZY!!!
November 8, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can see counting the robo-calls as contacts, but the problem is equating the robo-calls made by the McCain campaign with 'sales' calls. The vast majority (perhaps 100%?) of McCain robo-calls were negative, unsubstantiated smears against Obama. Meanwhile, all of the 100's of calls I made to swing-state voters for Obama were literally that FOR OBAMA, always including a pitch of why I supported Obama.
McCain's calls weren't trying to sell their brand of soap, they were trying to convince you were better off skipping that shower today. Even if they had made twice as many calls, of the calls were made by humans, the electorate was not going to be swayed to sit this one out and wait another four years for another pair of choices.
November 8, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with your point. The quality of the contact is the issue not was their contact. A robo call is BS even if positive vs. the calls you and I and others made for Barack
November 10, 2008 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
John, why did we lose Georgia?
November 8, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Several items:
1) Barr only got .7% when we all thought he'd get 2-3
2) Fulton County hi jinks, largest county in the city/state. Still nearly 70,000 uncounted military/overseas ballots from what I have been told.
3) Turnout - right at a smidge over 4M, about 20% higher - 4.2 would have made it
4) White vote - polls had showed Barack at 28%, returns show 23-24 even though the black vote was 30% and non white was 34%....
November 10, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I remember reading an article in early October that the Republicans had reported their robocalls as GOTV and thought that this was pretty whack. GOTV is pinning people as supporters (1's or 2's), rousting them out of their houses and to the polls, and checking the rolls at the polls to make sure your list has voted. Robocalls don't do any of that. Ah well, keep it up, R's, it made my job as an organizer easier.
November 8, 2008 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink