Newsgroup: it.politica
Titolo: Republicans Go To Obama School

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/republicans-go-to-obama-school
 
 
Republicans Go To Obama School
At Harvard, GOP staffers sit at Axelrod's feet. “We weren't even running 
in the same race.”
 
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Demoralized Republicans arrived in Boston Wednesday 
night for a rare moment in American politics: They came to learn from 
Democrats.
Barack Obama's campaign schooled Mitt Romney’s in November, something of 
which the Republicans who gathered at the quadrennial, off-the-record 
Harvard Institute of Politics Campaign Managers Conference were 
intensely aware. And while the proceedings of the event are under 
embargo until the institute releases audio transcripts of the 
proceedings, some participants shared their reactions.
“We got our butts kicked, so I’m going to school,” said the manager of 
one 2012 Republican presidential campaign on his way into the sessions 
on Thursday morning, held in a cozy university conference space.
One Romney aide tried to convince Obama digital director Teddy Goff to 
join forces with Zac Moffatt, who ran Romney's digital efforts.
The evening-and-a-day conference is the tenth in a 40-year tradition of 
analyzing winning and losing campaigns. It is, the Institute says, 
convened “in an effort to allow future candidates, managers, journalists 
and scholars to better understand the nature of modern presidential 
campaigns. This year, the line between students and teachers is clear. 
The Obama team spent much of the morning at the Charles Hotel, and 
skipped the session at which Romney aides and their Republican primary 
opponents discussed the bitter nominating process, trading strategies 
and regrets.
When it was the Obama team’s turn to discuss their strategy, the room 
was packed with Republicans.
Rarely has it been as obvious as it was in 2012 that one side has fallen 
badly behind on the technology and techniques of politics. From the 
basic communications tool of mass email to the vital new frontier of big 
political data, the Obama campaign’s strategy and tactics have drawn a 
level of excitement that is, among political professionals at least, 
notably greater than the excitement around the candidate’s message or 
his hard-won victory.
Romney’s entire team gathered for the early morning session at Harvard, 
even those who weren’t on the panel, in what appeared to be a deliberate 
effort to keep poisonous post-mortem finger-pointing to a minimum. 
Romney’s campaign chairman and frequent campaign trail sidekick Bob 
White, and Ron Kaufman, a senior adviser and the campaign’s mascot, sat 
opposite to the other Romney aides away from the tables arranged in a 
rectangle.
But the hot ticket at Harvard was the late-morning session in the same — 
now packed-to-the-brim — conference room, to hear seven top Obama aides 
to revisit their winning efforts.
The sages around the table: Top strategist David Axelrod, campaign 
manager Jim Messina, deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter, Goff, 
field director Jeremy Bird, opinion research director David Simas, and 
ad man Jim Margolis. Every aspect of their effort has already been the 
subject of tens of thousands of words, and they have been for weeks been 
fanning out across the country telling the story of their campaign’s 
success, but their rivals were still eager to learn.
Republican operatives from Rick Perry’s data-driven strategist Dave 
Carney, to Mark Block, Herman Cain’s chain-smoking campaign manager, 
filled the room, many visibly taking notes. Also listening were the 
SuperPAC kings: Carl Forti, Charlie Spies, and Steven Law, whose efforts 
on TV were solidly negated by the Obama campaign's field operation.
The final panel pitted the Obama and Romney aides against each other in 
a raw autopsy of the general election. Guests were undeterred by a 
blackout, as the lights went out while Obama senior adviser David 
Axelrod was beginning to explain the president’s terrible first debate 
performance — a coincidence quickly tweeted out by some in attendance. 
(The blackout cancelled the final, public, panel in which the top two 
strategists on both sides were set to face the cameras on stage.)
When it was finally over, more than one Republican walked out shaking 
his head.
“We weren’t even running in the same race,” one downtrodden Romney aide 
told BuzzFeed after hearing the details of the Obama operation. “They 
were just amazing.”
And over chicken potpie and mashed sweet potatoes in the wood-paneled 
dining room of the Harvard Kennedy School conference center, one 
Republican operative noted that Romney himself was reliving the election 
over lunch with President Barack Obama.
“Maybe [Mitt] can ask him what we need to do better next time,” the 
operative quipped.
-- 
Namib
.....
- God will take care of you. Whatever you need, God will give it to you.
- I need a shave. Am I next?
(Tom Kromer)

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