Volunteered for Obama? You won the election

Posted November 19th, 2008 by Spencer Critchley

Take it from the inner circle of the Obama campaign, as recorded late on Election Night by CBS' "60 Minutes" (emphasis mine):

Asked how they won states like North Carolina and Indiana, [campaign manager David] Plouffe told Kroft, "Well, first of all, we believed we could. I mean, I think part of it is not being afraid to venture out and try [to] win in what has been considered hostile territory. But we also had these volunteers. And without them, the idea of winning North Carolina and Indiana would be a bridge too far. And our campaign was the art of the possible because of these millions of people out there. You know, if we decided we wanted to go register 500,000 people in a state, we could because of them."

That is exactly what they did in North Carolina, where race did matter when it came to registering huge numbers of minority voters. Plouffe called it growing the electorate, and it changed the political map. In Indiana, the number of Obama field offices, staffed mostly by volunteers, outnumbered the McCain campaign 44 to none.

They used Internet sites like Facebook and Twitter to engage young voters. They canvassed neighborhoods street by street, identifying supporters and entering the information into a central database. It helped them determine who had voted early and who might need a ride to the polls on Election Day.

"I mean, our field operations and our targeting and all of that stuff was done with a level of sophistication that exceeded anything that had been done before," [chief strategist David] Axelrod said. "It was a marvel to watch. The bells and whistles that people are kind of shaking their heads at in wonderment were a direct result of David Plouffe."

"We've all worked in campaigns a lot and volunteerism in politics is a dying thing. And to see this many people getting involved, giving $25, manning phone banks, becoming neighborhood team captains, you know, hasn't been seen in a very long time. And I hope that that is the legacy of this campaign," Plouffe said.

"You ran an incredibly effective and disciplined campaign. Maybe the most effective, I mean, certainly one of the most effective presidential campaigns that's ever been run. There's no in-fighting. No real leaks. Almost no turnover. How did you manage that? Even the Republicans were in awe. Even your opponents couldn't believe it. How did you manage it?" Kroft asked.

"Well, it starts with the candidate. He is someone who his motto is 'no drama.' That doesn't mean that we don't express opinions strongly, but that we're all a unit. And once we make a decision, we stick with it. We don't revisit it. He stays very calm, doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. Treats people well. So when the leader is setting that example everyone follows," Plouffe said.

"We believed in him, and we believed in the cause. And we believed in each other. And by the end of this thing, over two years, you forge relationships. And we're like a family," Axelrod said. "I mean, the hardest thing about this is that it's ended now. I said it's like the end of the movie M*A*S*H. You know, the war's over. We're all going home. And we wanna go home. But, on the other hand, it's sort of a bit of melancholy because we've come to love each other and believe in each other. And we know that this will never be the same that we went through this experience and it was a singular experience and it'll never be the same."