Interesting, but these community organizer techniques are not exactly profound and could be applied to any group Admittedly, they have greater marginal effect when you are dealing with low-IQ voters for whom “planning ahead”, etc. are new concepts.
I think the decisive factor in 2012 was not the “missing” 2008 McCain voters, or get-out-the-vote psy-ops, but the missing 2008 Obama moderates. Obama’s campaign was designed for Moderate Voter Suppression, and it worked. Obama’s handlers knew they had lost support from millions of independents and moderate Democrats who voted for him in 2008. Most people will go to all sorts of mental games to avoid admitting they have ever been wrong. Voting for a Republican in 2012 would require such an admission. Not voting at all avoids the psychological pain. Obama’s negative campaign provided nothing to make the ex-Obamans return to the fold. Instead they provided a menu of mental excuses to help the ex-Obamans stay home.
Obama’s base of leftists and dependency voters was enough to win. Romney’s campaign focused on turning out the Republican/conservative base, and he was mostly successful on that. This base isn’t enough for victory by itself. But his campaign did not seem to reach out to the ex-Obamans, and provide a justification to vote for Romney this time — that doing so was not a betrayal or racist or an admission of a mistake, but a patriotic duty during a time of crisis. (This is not the same thing as pandering or selling out on issues).
There were a lot of Romney ads that said “It’s OK” to let Obama go. They were fairly soft and gauzy ads. So, they were at least aware of the issue.