John Huntsman probably had a better chance of winning the primaries, too bad the republicans couldn't pick someone so moderate.
NPR have a good summation of how Obama won -- twice.
Obama's Win Powered By Organization, If Not Ideas : It's All Politics : NPR
"The Obama campaign realized better than any other campaign that elections aren't about one big thing anymore," says Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. "Part of that is we have much better tools now to isolate the impact of individual interactions between a campaign and voters, and lots of data that allows us to segment the voters themselves."
Issenberg argues that the Obama campaign took those tools, including the application of social science insights and experiments, and, with the gift of four years to perfect its operation, "used them better than any other political enterprise in history."
The economy affects everyone of every demographic at the most personal level. But the summation pretty much confirms what I have always suspected -- but unsure -- when Obama came into prominence: That the key to winning each demographic is isolate out the single dominant issues
BESIDES ECONOMICS per demographic group and custom tailor your message accordingly.
For the working class, it is the perception that 'the rich' are crooks, exploitative, and uncaring.
For the Latinos, it is about immigration.
For the blacks, this is a 'gimme'. The Obama political machine can have a relatively hands-off tactic and let the group's internal racial police enforce racial solidarity, thereby assured a high degree of political conformity.
For the homosexuals, it is about legal equality with heterosexuals in terms of everything under the country's laws.
For women, given the Republicans' historical views on conservative Christianity regarding women, it was easy to fabricate a false 'war on women' attitude from the conservatives, from abortion to birth control, then a couple of over 50 white Republican males made a couple of insensitive remarks about rape and that sealed the Democrats' hold on this group. Many will dispute Akin's and Mourdock's comments effects on the Presidential election when they were running for their own offices -- and failed -- but I believe the effects were much more subtle and distasteful to women, in general, and to even conservative ones who voted for Romney. Republicans have got to realize that the over 50 white Republican males demographic group among them should STFU about sex in general, let alone rape.
The economy is like the weather -- it falls upon everybody. But immigration does not
EMOTIONALLY affect US borne citizens the way it does the Latinos. Same for gay marriages. And so on...The same way that snow removal machines are irrelevant in Texas and Nevada even in the midst of winter for New York. This precision focus is what pulled un-polled and unexpected voters into the Democrats' side and threw conventional wisdom way off. Even Gingrich admitted today.
Newt Gingrich:
“I think the country was looking at a different set of things than we were looking at,” he said. “Republicans are going to have to take a very serious look at what happened and why it did happen and why we were not more competitive at the presidential level.
He mean the country to be the people of these diverse demographics. Each group was looking at something else besides what the Republicans and Romney did successfully prodded them to look at, and the fact that Romney won %49 of the popular vote meant that they did successfully prodded the general population to look at the economy as standalone issue. But it was not enough for each group. Each needed more and the Obama political machine was insightful enough to exploit that need.
