In 2008, the Obama campaign was masterful at using digital technology and social media to engage voters and get out the vote. The McCain campaign was absolutely trounced in the digital arena. This year, things are much different according to this Roll Call story.
Campaign aides for Romney and the RNC are excited because they believe their ability to locate demographic and issue blocs of sympathetic voters and turn them out — without accidentally pitching and turning out voters inclined to support Obama — has been refined to the point where it’s close to error-free. Beeson likened the campaign’s microtargeting to being able to isolate grains of sand, saying they have “never had the level of granularity we have now.”
Conceding that Romney is fielding a more effective turnout operation than McCain, the Obama campaign said there’s no way Republicans could replicate the president’s effort, given that they built theirs in less than a year. Obama campaign spokesman Adam Fetcher said Chicago spent the several months Romney and the RNC were ramping up keeping a “conversation going with undecided voters,” and he said that would make a difference Nov. 6.
