Much has been written in the last week about the Obama campaign's superior data system, and the Romney campaign's untested ORCA GOTV tech that crashed on E-Day. The between-the-lines inference is that the Romney campaign could have won, if only their election-day GOTV system had worked. And though I worked on Obama's data team during the final five weeks of this cycle, and was nothing but impressed by the amazing data infrastructure that had been built up over the past four years, I still don't believe that what won it for us was superior data. That helped to facilitate our win, sure. And I'm proud to have even briefly been a member of that team. But the real win came from how each candidate presented their message to the voters.
The Obama message was simple. A continuation of 2008's Tax Relief for the Middle Class talking points, coupled with Joe Biden's war-cry of "General Motors is Alive and Osama Bin Laden is Dead." The Romney message throughout the campaign was so convoluted that I doubt anyone, especially Mitt Romney, could sum it up in just a few sentences. He is on-record as having had two different positions on abortion on the same day. By the third debate, Mitt Romney's message had become "Whatever Obama's Message Is, Well, That's My Message Too, But I Can Do It Better Because I Say I Can". Mitt Romney was actually using "Hope and Change" as an unofficial slogan within a few days of the election.
