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According to Politico (I don't know if this is the best data, but it was high on the list in Google) Obama won Florida by about 60,000 votes (out of almost 10 m

According to Politico (I don't know if this is the best data, but it was high on the list in Google) Obama won Florida by about 60,000 votes (out of almost 10 million cast). Now, that Romney volunteer says: the end result was that 30,000+ of the most active and fired-up volunteers were wandering around confused and frustrated when they could have been doing anything else to help. Like driving people to the polls, phone-banking, walking door-to-door, etc Now, if those volunteers had been engaged, could that have tipped the state to Romney? I don't know how many of those volunteers were in Florida, and how many votes each dedicated volunteer can turn out, but it's entirely plausible. (Of course, even if Romney had won Florida, Obama still would have won.

anigbrowl 14y ago
A related story (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/08/Orca-How-the-Romney-Campaign-Suppressed-Its-Own-Vote http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/08/Orca-How-...) observes that Obama won by about 5-700,000 votes in swing states. Given that there were 37k 'Project ORCA' volunteers in swing states, the author estimates that if each had brought only 20 additional voters to the polls the election could have gone to Romney. Now, I think this is rather unlikely, and reminiscent of the 'Bargaining' stage in the Kubler-Ross model of the grieving process; polls last weekend in critical states like OH and FL showed strong support for Democratic senate candidates and >70% support for Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy, and the poll momentum was already headed Obama's way. Likewise, Republican voters who can't stand the President were highly motivated to go out and vote against him anyway and likely did so with or without a phone call - indeed, I heard from some Romney supporters that the campaign relied far too heavily on robo-calling in the leadup to the election, to the point that they were sick of getting reminders. But having 37k field volunteers confused and dispirited on election day is still a disaster. It's very ironic that a campaign that was nominally against 'trickle down government' was run in such a centralized, dictatorial fashion. Psychologically, it seems like a classic case of projection - unconsciously ascribing one's own personality traits to other people in one's life. Romney's reported preference for abundant data and tight control robbed tens of thousands of his most enthusiastic supporters of their autonomy and initiative.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Check out Silver from yesterday: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-nation-and-parties-change-republicans-are-at-an-electoral-college-disadvantage/ http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-natio... Obama's tipping point state was CO, which he won by almost 5 points, or somewhere in the vicinity of 80-90k votes. People will pay a lot of attention to Ohio, Florida, and Virginia (crazy that OH was closer than VA!), but Obama could have lost all three and still won.

anigbrowl 14y ago

A related story (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/08/Orca-How-the-Romney-Campaign-Suppressed-Its-Own-Vote http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/11/08/Orca-How-...) observes that Obama won by about 5-700,000 votes in swing states. Given that there were 37k 'Project ORCA' volunteers in swing states, the author estimates that if each had brought only 20 additional voters to the polls the election could have gone to Romney. Now, I think this is rather unlikely, and reminiscent of the 'Bargaining' stage in the Kubler-Ross model of the grieving process; polls last weekend in critical states like OH and FL showed strong support for Democratic senate candidates and >70% support for Obama's handling of Hurricane Sandy, and the poll momentum was already headed Obama's way. Likewise, Republican voters who can't stand the President were highly motivated to go out and vote against him anyway and likely did so with or without a phone call - indeed, I heard from some Romney supporters that the campaign relied far too heavily on robo-calling in the leadup to the election, to the point that they were sick of getting reminders. But having 37k field volunteers confused and dispirited on election day is still a disaster. It's very ironic that a campaign that was nominally against 'trickle down government' was run in such a centralized, dictatorial fashion. Psychologically, it seems like a classic case of projection - unconsciously ascribing one's own personality traits to other people in one's life. Romney's reported preference for abundant data and tight control robbed tens of thousands of his most enthusiastic supporters of their autonomy and initiative.

tptacek 14y ago
Check out Silver from yesterday: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-nation-and-parties-change-republicans-are-at-an-electoral-college-disadvantage/ http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/08/as-natio... Obama's tipping point state was CO, which he won by almost 5 points, or somewhere in the vicinity of 80-90k votes. People will pay a lot of attention to Ohio, Florida, and Virginia (crazy that OH was closer than VA!), but Obama could have lost all three and still won.