Romney's Lament: He Blinded Me With Science

Fittingly, the party that embraces Creationism and rejects global warming, got a cold shoulder from the evolving science of data mining.  In this weeks issue of Time, Michael Scherer has an excellent article on the "cave", the windowless room in the Chicago Headquarters where techies crunched data.

The scientific method is to constantly test, and refine assumptions.  Through testing, followed by data analysis, the Obama campaign knew who to ask for online contributions, and what message to use in solicitations.  One example given by Scherer is that the dinner with George Clooney raffle, showed that women ages 40-49 in close geographic proximity (Southern California) to the dinner were most receptive to lottery solicitations.  So an east coast based celebrity, with appeal to that demographic, Sarah Jessica Parker, was chosen for the next dinner raffle.

Algorithms were developed and tested for voters most likely to support Obama.  This was used in registration drives.  Ad buys, to turn out and persuade voters, were done in house.  This allowed precise placement of ads, utilizing polling data, to reach a targeted demographic with a tailored message.  Social media was maximized.  Someone who had downloaded the Obama app who had friends in swing states was sent a message to forward to five of those friends.

Romney ran a faith based campaign.  Unlike science, which revises assumptions to correspond with data, faith is an immovable object.  Facts must be revised to fit the assumptions.  The guiding assumptions were (1) that Republican enthusiasm would result in a large turnout, (2) disillusionment would drive down Democratic turnout compared to 2008, particularly among minorities and the young.  Therefore, if Romney could win independents, he would be president.   Romney won independents by 5 points.  On election day he, and his campaign, were certain they had won.

Based on the Romney assumptions, most of the public pollsters, whose livelihood depends on accuracy, were wrong because they were oversampling Democrats.  The polls were correct.  Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 6 percent.  The key is that Obama won moderates by 15 percent while loosing independents by 5.  There was only a tiny squishy tootsie roll center of unaffiliated, undecided moderate independents.  The rest were hard coated partisan blue or red voters.   Some Republicans may have self identified as independents, because they were even more conservative than the GOP.

Romney's one foray into modern electioneering  was Orca, an expensive get out the vote mobile app, developed to communicate the voting of targeted voters between headquarters and the field.  It was a beached whale.  Accepted on faith, it was never field tested.  It crashed.  The Romney campaign had to rely on CNN for voting information.  It could have been worse.  They might have needed to depend on Rachel Maddow.

Three Yards and a Cloud of Dust

Woody Hayes, the immortal former football coach for Ohio State, was known for grinding it out on the ground.  It is too early to pop the corks.  But for those who like to be prepared, Obama's ground game is the reason to start chilling the champagne.

Let's study the playbook for an AP poll that has Romney ahead by two percent nationally among likely voters.  Among all adults Obama actually leads by eight.  That was the reason for the registration push in battleground states.   Nationally the poll has Obama ahead by one among all registered voters.  So the goal was to register more voters in swing states to get closer to the eight percent lead that exists among all adults, and then get them to the polls to erase the difference between likely and registered voters.

An often quoted statistic is that Obama has more than double the number of field offices in battleground states.  But the disparity is much larger.  Reporting for the Atlantic Monthly, Molly Ball surveyed a number of field offices.  Obama offices were lead by professional staff, and devoted to Obama.  Romney offices were less organized, often all volunteer, and devoted primarily to local candidates, with some Romney literature.  But to get the full picture go to the events section on each candidates website for your zip code.  In Southern California, no Romney events are scheduled for the next week.  In contract for Obama there are multiple gatherings each day for calling swing state voters as well as planned caravans to Nevada,  the nearest battleground.

The most accurate measure of the ground game is early voting.  In the most recent Time Magazine poll for Ohio, Obama had a 2 to 1 advantage among early voters.  In Iowa, 55000 more Democrats have voted than Republicans.  Barring a late hail Mary, Obama should beat the spread.