After reading countless articles on the election the one that best explains the campaign and how it came together is by Carl Cannon in the Readers Digest online: Ten Reasons Why Obama Won. Over the course of the past months I have discussed this campaign with political pollsters, fundraisers, political ad firms and full time campaign workers in Florida, Virginia and Ohio. This is one of the advantages of living inside the beltway around Washington D.C.
It was clear to me that this race was generational more than racial, as John McCain’s age was a huge factor. Barak Obama had the clear advantage of fundraising and organization. The Obama Message was clear and simple, the McCain message was all over the map. People around the country wanted a leader as Bush has been absent in chief since the last election. In Barak they found a leader.
Carl’s top ten include:
1. John McCain’s age
2. The shrinking Republican Brand
3. Candidate Obama was really the “One” (Charisma)
4. Young voters fell for Obama early
5. Democrats closed the “technology gap” and then some
6. Money talks
7. International opinion (This helped with many immigrants)
8. Polling was accurate (no Bradley Effect)
9. Sour mood of the electorate
10. The Global Economic Crisis
One thing not on this list that I found interesting was the devotion by many of America’s new immigrants for Barak Obama, they saw his candidacy as providing hope for them and their children, this was very similar to the way that African Americans saw hope in his candidacy.
John McCain had a lot of things completely out of his control go wrong, but he ran a very disorganized campaign, but to his credit he bowed out very gracefully.