Obama s Convention Crowd: World s Largest Phone Bank

Tag : Computer Phone Call

DENVER — Those 75,000 Democrats who will pack a footballstadium for Barack Obama’s convention speech won’t bethere just to whoop and holler on television. They’ll formthe world’s largest phone bank to boost voter registration— fired-up supporters using computer targeting the campaignhas spent months putting together.
The move to the Invesco Field at Mile High stadium for theconvention’s final night next month — at an additionalcost of $5 million — will capture a huge crowd the Obamacampaign plans to put to work. They’ll be armed with datagleaned through “microtargeting” unregistered votersthe campaign believes are ripe to back Obama if pressed to get onboard.
“If we do this right, we’ll be unbeatable,” saidSteve Hildebrand, the Obama adviser overseeing the effort.
One key to Obama’s victory plan is to expand the electorate,bringing in more young voters, minorities, suburban women, seniorson fixed incomes and people who have been disaffected by politicsand might respond to the freshman Illinois senator’s messageof change over the more experienced Republican John McCain.
President Bush used microtargeting techniques effectively in 2004,but his target was regular voters who were likely to vote for him.Obama’s focus is more on finding people who are notregistered to vote and figuring out how to persuade them to sign upand back him.
Hildebrand said the campaign has identified 55 million unregisteredvoters across the country, by comparing registration lists withlists of potential voters gleaned by mining consumer databases thesame way credit card companies track people’s spending. Theysay their research estimates more than two-thirds would vote forObama if they were registered and motivated.
The campaign is already holding voter registration efforts acrossthe country, and the convention will be followed by a big drive onthe following Labor Day weekend.
The campaign is convening the 4,439 convention delegates instate-by-state meetings during the next couple of weeks, and theywill be asked to commit time each week before the Nov. 4 electionto register voters and persuade them to back Obama. That includesdelegates who supported Hillary Rodham Clinton, some of whom stillhave hard feelings from the primary but are being asked to workdiligently for the ticket.
The delegates will be part of a massive audience expected atInvesco on Aug. 28, when Obama becomes the party’s firstblack presidential nominee. The campaign wants to use the hypesurrounding the historic moment to build a volunteer force in all50 states.
The Democrats plan to hand out 60,000 stadium tickets to stateparty leaders, with instructions to distribute them in a way thathelps drive up Obama’s support. That might mean rewardinglocal organizers who are volunteering their time for voterregistration, or perhaps identifying independent or Republicanvoters who might be persuaded by hearing Obama accept thenomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther KingJr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Not all states will be treated equally. Battleground states wherevoters are being targeted and Western states within drivingdistance of Denver will be given more tickets, with host Coloradogetting the most. The Obama campaign sees the convention as achance to put him on top in a state that hasn’t voted for aDemocratic presidential candidate since 1992.
The campaign has identified more than half a million unregisteredpotential voters in Colorado — one-fifth of the state’seligible population. The numbers are even higher in some otherbattleground states.
Hildebrand points to Georgia as a prime example, where nearly athird of the voting-eligible population is unregistered —more than half of those being black, Hispanic or under 24. He saysObama could win the state with a muscular drive to enroll them andwith McCain losing Republican votes to Bob Barr, a former GOPcongressman from Georgia running for president as a Libertarian.
The campaign recognizes that people who live in battleground stateswill be more effective at persuading their neighbors than thetraditional advertising campaigns, which is why it’simportant to send the masses who will be in Denver out withinstructions and training to bring in votes.
In the past half-century, technology has replaced peer-to-peer,ground-game politics with the broader weapons of hitting opponentsin television commercials and other mass advertising. The Obamacampaign wants to use technology and microtargeting techniques toreturn to the political roots.
“What has won elections for 200 years is a neighbor talkingto a neighbor, some peer talking to a peer,” said Obamacampaign manager David Plouffe. “People need other people todo their validating, especially young voters who are more resistantto ads and mainstream media reports.”
Enter the 75,000 people who will have to come hours early forObama’s acceptance speech to get through security, mostcarrying cell phones. As they settle in their seats, campaign aideswill be on stage asking them to text message their friends and usecall sheets to get people to register. “There will be a lotof idle time. We put idle people to work,” Hildebrand said.
The campaign effectively used similar organizational tactics in theDemocratic primary, such as when tens of thousands gathered to seeOprah Winfrey campaign with Obama in Iowa and South Carolina. Butthis will be on a much larger scale and focus on voter registrationbesides persuasion.
The Obama campaign is using microtargeting not just to identifyvoters and their chief issues — much as Bush did — butas a way of going after the untapped resource of unregisteredpeople.
“New technologies and the data that’s available to usmakes me fundamentally believe that we do not need to accept theelectorate as it is,” Plouffe said. “It can be greatlyexpanded.”
The campaign has found about 8.1 million unregistered yet eligibleblacks, another 8 million unregistered Hispanics and nearly 7.5million unregistered people between the ages of 18 and 24.Officials also are looking at more women versus men, more highlyeducated voters, people on fixed incomes and those who have movedacross state lines in recent years and could change the votermakeup.
Obama benefits from a highly motivated group of supporters —more than 2 million people living across all 50 states havevolunteered to help elect him — and a record-breakingfundraising operation that can fund these efforts nationwide.
“This is not smoke and mirrors,” Hildebrand said.“We’re just the first campaign with the capacity to doit.”
He compares Obama’s potential to change the party toPresident Reagan, who remade the GOP for a generation. “If wedo it right, we can be the dominant party for the nextdecade,” Hildebrand said.
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