1) That the Democrats clearly have a more effective team operating in the field. For example, my debate opponent from Democrats Abroad had been to many, many Democrat Party training events in DC and had a direct line to vast numbers of not only politicians but also access to an entire administrative support network at party headquarters. All during the night, he knew in real time from party HQ specific exit poll data for strategic zip codes and indicated that the local leaders were reacting in real time to rush in any potential reserves of voters who may not have already voted in those precincts. In other words, they have "troops" in the voting field with multiple levels of leaders and a powerful admin support. If need be, these "troops" will hand carry a voter in to secure the vote.
2) They have an incredible amount of specific data [* see after 6, below] about not only their own constituents but about the demographics of their voters, potential voters, where they live, their occupations (note I didn't say work) , their affiliations (ie churches, unions, social clubs)---and how to get them to actually commit the act of voting. All of this on a house to house basis for strategic precincts.
Here I don't mean general data like X% are in the union but specifics like which specific churches in Cleveland will help organize car pools to get voters in specific neighborhoods into the voting booth. Or making sure that specific local union offices are coordinating their efforts with other union halls, social clubs and church groups in specific areas to achieve a huge turnout in their precincts. Or what powerful local community leaders can be counted on to bring their flock into the voting booth. And all of it is gamed out well in advance of the election.
In their world, they are very, very, very close to their voters and handle them directly just like their vision of the Nanny State handling citizens. The data is provided by their field operations and continually updated at all times---not only at election times. And furthermore, they seem to have a surprising amount of specific demographic data about Republican voters--or at least about strategic concentrations of them. On one level, this capability could be comparable to the depth of market data that a route salesman would be expected to know about his territory and customers. On another level, this deep capability covers at least all strategically important geographic areas and is strategically managed with the professionalism of military intelligence resources.
3) They have a very effective communications system which coordinates efforts of Nr1 and Nr2 from the head of the snake all the way down to street level "troops". It works reliably and their team knows how to use it.
4) Since the 2000 election, I have been aware that their team routinely takes advantage of vast pro democrat sentiments overseas to gain
a)fundraising from abroad through donations to groups like Democrats Abroad,b) foreign citizens who volunteer to operate programs like phone banks, websites, social media, mailings which can be managed from Europe for example but used to back up the election effort stateside, and
c) large armies of energetic Europeans (ie students but also sometimes retirees) who take "vacations" to the USA during vote season and "volunteer" as free manpower to help field operations of democrats. To them, this is a fun way to experience the American Dream while helping achieve success for the candidate of their choice (always a democrat). How many are there? Probably many thousands--but there is no way to tell since they are not officially working.
5) When elections are coming up, the Democrats do not set up operations to win the election [as the Republicans do]. The Democrats ALWAYS have their program running at some ongoing medium level and simply rev it up to speed during elections...
[G]enerally speaking, there is never a stop to campaigning and field work designed to maintain heavy voter levels. So bear in mind that, today is not the end of an election where they pack up and go home until next time like Republicans do...
The first thing they [the Democrats] are going to do, is to figure out how this election was won and start gaming out the next election. Seriously, they probably already have started figuring out how to win the 2016 election even if they aren't sure yet which candidates will be chosen for which jobs. In many ways, their operations work like the U.S. Army where there are many levels of leaders, deep bench strength of future leaders, mentoring, training and clear leadership development programs so that they will never be caught with their pants down and not have leaders who can take over wherever and whenever. This is not the case with the Republican party for sure.
6) Demographics are going against us, and the demographic groups that traditionally support democrats are growing while those who traditionally support republicans are shrinking. In other words, in future elections, it will be much harder to defeat democrats at the national level ----that is unless there is a way to convince these lucrative voter groups who support democrats right now that it is a better idea to support Republican candidates. Obviously this is a really serious issue which will cause huge debate.... But bear in mind that if Puerto Rico becomes a state, then there will immediately be two more senators and some more congressmen who will certainly voter with Obama's crew unless something else changes.
* Inside the Secret World of the Data Crunchers Who Helped Obama Win
bttt
Thanks, that’s the best part of this great essay.