Barack Obama 2012 Campaign Analysis
Project title:
Analysing Barack Obama 2012 campaign and its historical consequences
Module: Marketing Politics
Bc. Štěpán Soukeník
Visiting Erasmus Student
Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, 2012
Executive summary
In this project Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 is scrutinised. First, the political,
economic, social and technological aspects before the elections are presented. Second, key
stakeholders and their impact on the campaign are described. Third, Obama’s policy positioning, imagery, promotion and place are analysed. Finally, the 2012 campaign is compared with
the historical analogies.
The ‘Givens’
Several campaigns have been remembered due to the primacy or dominance in the use of new
technologies. In 1952 the first TV ad in broadcasting was used in the campaign ‘Eisenhower
answers America ’ (Wood, 1990). Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 was the first to use the In-
ternet (Johnson, 2011). In 2008 Obama mastered the state-of-the-art social networks – Twitter
with 112 000 followers, Facebook with more than two million fans and YouTube channel
with tens of million viewers (Owyang, 2008; Johnson 2011). This year, Obama cleverly took
advantage of the sheer rise of mobile technologies (BarackObama.com, 2012a; BusinessWeek, 2012).
The sequels of economic crisis which burst out in 2008 had a huge impact on policy rhetoric
in 2012 campaign. Democrats had to strike back the verbal offensive from Romney’s team
and they needed to persuade voters that their promises will be kept and they would not knockout the American economy.
The important part of 2012 campaign was the impact of ‘Super PACs’, independent expenditure-only committees. They were founded after a federal court case known as SpeechNow.org
1
vs. Federal Election Commission in 2010 (OpenSecrets.org, 2012a). They supported a candidate with donations from companies, individuals and unions and also produced their own
campaigns (InfoPlease.org, 2012). Nonetheless, they were not a direct part of campaigns, so
they could afford to be extremely negative and rigorous. The major pro-Obama Super PAC
was ‘Priorities USA Action’. It opposed pro-Romney Super PAC ‘Restore our Future’ which
gained the most profit of all Super PACs (OpenSecrets.org, 2012).
At the end of October 2012 the eastern coast of the USA was hit by hurricane Sandy. Many
commentators discussed its impact on turnout and popular vote accumulation. For instance,
Nate Silver, whose statistical predictions of the election results were almost precise, argued
that the Sandy influence was uncertain (Silver, 2012). However, as to the exit polls by CBS
News, 42 per cents of US citizens marked Obama’s response to the hurricane as the important
factor when deciding who to vote for (Kamm, 2012). The key political specific was the role of
swing states. As a presidential candidate needs 270 votes from the Electoral College, his main
focus and campaign importance has to be given to the states comprising of Colorado, Florida,
Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin (Politico.com,
2012a).
The image no. 1 (The Economist, 2012a)
The ‘Party organization’
This year, it has been the first time an incumbent president did not manage his campaign from
Washington D.C. Due to the previous Obama’s job as a senator of Illinois, the headquarters of
the campaign was set in Chicago for the reason to get closer to the grassroots and volunteers
(McClelland, 2011).
2
Obama’s key managerial team consisted of campaign manager Jim Messina, consultant David
Axelrod and lead pollster Joel Benenson. Tens of the others created the whole campaign team.
Jim Messina had already worked for Obama in 2008 campaign as the Chief of Staff. In January 2011 he became a chief campaign manager of Obama’s re-election campaign (Green,
2012). David Axelrod played a role of senior consultant with a profound experience with election campaigns since managing the successful campaign for Congressman Paul Simon in
1984. Bill Clinton also played a particular role in the late campaign (p2012.org).
Many comments were written about Bill Clinton’s influence. He endorsed Obama in the TV
spot called ‘He’s got it right’. Some called him ‘the Behind the Scene Strategist’ (Leibovich,
2012). ‘[…] President Obama’s got it right. We should invest in the middle class, education
and innovation […] and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. Sound familiar? ’ (Time.com,
2012).
As Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary was beaten by Obama in her effort to become Democrat Party
presidential candidate, many people argued about the relationship between Obama and Clinton. Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s close friend, explained that Bill Clinton is ‘[…] chiefly concerned with the direction of the country, not his relationship with anyone ’ (Leibovich, 2012).
In any case, Bill Clinton may have helped Obama’s re-election in the field of economics with
the reminder of his time of wealthy 90s.
The ‘Controllables’
Policy positioning
The negative rhetoric penetrated the campaign from policy vindication to the political advertising (LivingRoomCandidate.org, 2012). Obama’s slogan ‘FORWARD’ was used everywhere
possible. With the connection of the word ‘BACKWARD ’, Obama promoted and explained his
policy. He used six main topics of his policy issues: ‘Innovation, Taxes, Nation-Building at
Home, Energy, Education and Health Care’ (BarackObama.com, 2012b). In the sub-sections
of each issue, he argued for his policy and compared it with Mitt Romney’s quotes or issues.
However, he cited the sources of the Romney’s quotes very shallow as we may see for instance in the ‘Economics ’ section (BarackObama.com, 2012c).
Three presidential debates had a considerable impact on policy explaining and campaign flow.
The major tensions between Democrats and Republicans were in economics, healthcare and
foreign policy. For instance, Obama fought for raising taxes for wealthy people, continuing in
insurance policy and expansion of ‘Medicaid’, reset with Russia and engagement with all parties in international relations (Diffen.com, 2012; The Telegraph, 2012a). Especially US-Iran
3
relations were the striking point of Romney counter-offensive and Obama’s vindication based
on his previous attempts to restore diplomacy and good relations (Council on Foreign Relations, 2012). In the first debate on domestic policy on October 3rd, 2012 at the University of
Denver, Romney attacked Obama and won as to the majority of journalists and experts.
Obama was a bit dubious and also presented some false arguments (FactCheck.com, 2012).
However, Obama dominated in the following two debates and especially in the last one where
Romney adopted Obama’s strategies and did not manage to oppose efficiently (CBS News,
2012).
Imagery
As to Nimmo and Mansfield, we can judge the candidate images comparing following attributes: ‘honesty, integrity, intelligence, careful analysis in decision making, reasoned statesmanship and leadership, firm issue stands and a willingness to consult with others ’ (Nimmo
and Mansfield, 1985; cited in Hacker, 2004, p. 32).
Obama has got several attributes which distinguish him from his opponents and which he indeed masters. As the alumni of Harvard Law School, Obama proves his intelligence and leadership skills. His rhetoric used to be marked as excellent, though many journalists call him
‘professorial’ due to his rigid and austere style of speech (Politico.com, 2012b). Being the
first African-American President of the USA brings him the support from the minorities, especially the Latin and African communities. Coming back to the foreign policy part, he also
proves a willingness to consult with others, even though he is often described as unflappable
and reserved (Younge, 2010). Joe Biden has been the first vice-president from Delaware,
which he had represented in the US Senate for 36 years (Palmer, 2009). Together with Obama
they formed a core part of the election campaign.
The main part of campaign rhetoric was the slogan ‘FORWARD’ with the positioning ‘Four
more years’ set to vindicate the reasons for his continual presidency. ‘Four more years’ also
became the most popular tweet ever (BarackObama.com, 2012d; The Telegraph, 2012b).
The image no. 2 (Tuoutreach.com, 2012)
4
Promotions
President Obama officially started his re-election campaign on April 4th, 2011. He announced
it on his Twitter channel. He sent the official email to his supporters and publicised a video
spot in which many people advocated Obama’s re-election. The important part of the campaign start was that Obama’s team set up the headquarters in Chicago, to reach his grassroots
supporters (Condon, 2011).
The 2012 presidential race was the most expensive in US history with estimated cost of 6 billion dollars. In terms of Obama’s campaign, the so-called ‘Bundlers’ – well-connected donators – played the significant role (Berr, 2012; OpenSecrets.com, 2012b). The major Obama’s
donators were for instance Jeffrey Katzenberg from DreamWorks and Barry Meyer from
Warner Brothers (OpenSecrets.com, 2012c).
Obama’s campaign team used several types of communication tone in TV ads. Both positive
and negative spots were directed to TV and onto the official YouTube.com channel. Some of
them were positive (e.g. ‘Challenges’), others negative (e.g. ‘Collapse’ and ‘Policy’ where
Obama opposed Romney’s policy) and the campaign team also took advantages of celebrity
endorsements [Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, etc. (Youtube.com, 2012a)].
Same as in 2008, social networks and new media technologies served as the key campaign
media types. Obama used his official website BarackObama.com to provide information from
the campaign, bring the volunteers into the campaign and explain his policy and reasons to
believe. Apart of the website, many social networks were used (Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
Flickr, Instagram, Storify, Pinterest, Spotify, Tumblr and YouTube).
The code-name of Obama’s 2012 campaign was as to many commentators ‘Operation Narwhal’, because ‘[…] as an Arctic whale with a long spiral tusk […] he merged information
collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and consumer databases as well as socialmedia and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing states into a
single massive database’ (Thiessen, 2012) and the key word of the 2012 campaign to remem-
ber was ‘Big Data ’ or the ‘Power of Data ’ (Issenberg, 2012; Brancaccio, 2012).
The significant focus within the media mix was directed to the Internet and social media in
particular, though other media formats were used and often merged and interlinked [e.g. TV
ads and YouTube (Youtube.com, 2012a)]. Obama also used very creative outdoor adversiting
with claiming that ‘our work is not done’ (AdsOfTheWorld.com, 2012).
5
The image no. 3 (AdsOfTheWorld.com, 2012)
Obama’s speeches and quotes following hurricane Sandy had a huge promotional effect (Feller, 2012). We must not forget the Michelle Obama’s role in the campaign. President Obama’s
wife campaigned actively for her husband and tried to boost his public image (Kantor, 2012).
The last promotional activity to mention is the role of Super PACs and other online activities
some of which were interlinked with Obama’s campaign team and some were not. Apart from
the abovementioned pro-Obama Super PACs, the significant promotional activities were done
for instance by microsite ‘Romney Economics’ (YouTube.com, 2012b) where Obama’s team
summarised the most negative facts and data of Romney’s previous governance in Massachusetts with leading motto ‘47th out of 50 states in job creation’ (BarackObama.com, 2012e).
Place
The headquarters of Obama’s campaign team was set in Chicago and the most activity was
dedicated to the key swing states where the direct communication within road shows was
made. However, the campaign in 2012 was done by thousands of volunteers who were connected via special part of Obama’s social network called ‘Dashboard’ (BarackObama.com,
2012f). Everyone wishing to cooperate on the campaign could sign up and be connected with
campaign headquarters and other volunteers. The number of registered members on this site
got over 2 million (Dickinson, 2012).
As to the direct campaign, Obama’s team made a huge effort in communicating with his previous supporters from 2008 campaign. At the beginning, Obama sent a letter with saying for
instance that ‘I always said that our last campaign was not about me. It was always about you
6
— your hopes, your dreams and the challenges you face and the possibilities you imagine.’
(Bobnak, 2012). Obama’s team used the collected data and worked on the most precise targeting they could make to persuade unconvinced voters and maintain good relations with the
faithful supporters.
The historical consequences
When scrutinising Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, we may observe many links to the
history. There are four main circles of analogies described in this part – economic environment, campaign tone, rhetoric and organisational perspective.
In 1936 incumbent Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposed Republican Alf
Landon. Roosevelt emphasised the New Deal Programme after the Great Depression in early
1930s. Here we can trace at least four similarities. The economic recession in late 2000s reminds the situation in 1930s. Obama was an incumbent president before 2012 elections same
as Roosevelt in 1936. Obama is also a member of Democratic Party (Matthews, 2011). Finally, in terms of the election success both Roosevelt and Obama won their re-elections.
Since Johnson vs. Goldwater campaign in 1964 with Daisy Girl TV ad, a mother of negative
advertising spots, negative campaigning has risen to a rigorous battle. The 2012 campaign
was probably one of the most negative in US history as more than 75 per cents of ads were
negative (LivingRoomCandidate, 2012). With 474 released ads (215 of them pro-Democratic)
it is a significant number (Pringle, 2012). Nonetheless, there were also several positive spots.
Well-known actor Morgan Freeman narrated the “Challenges” TV ad, saying: ‘Every president inherits challenges, few have faced so many. Four years later our enemies have been
brought to justice […] there are still challenges to meet […] the last thing we should do is
turn back now.’ (YouTube.com, 2012c). The positive tone and impact on continuing the pres-
idency reminds 1984 campaign between incumbent Ronald Reagan and his opponent Walter
Mondale. Particularly it regards the TV ad ‘It is morning again in America ’ (YouTube.com,
2006). Nevertheless, the spot ‘Challenges’ was more an exception in the strikes of negative
attacks.
In terms of media rhetoric, there are three possible remarks of historic campaigns. First, in
2004 Bush called Kerry a ‘flip-flopper for saying different things at different times about Iraq,
the terror war and economic policies as well’ (Swint, 2008, p. 4). Similarly, Obama’s campaign team portrayed Romney as a flip-flopper due to his varying opinions (Bolton, 2012).
Second, when Obama introduced his re-election campaign slogan ‘FORWARD’, it immediately raised controversy. Some commentators linked it to the legacy of socialists and Marxists
7
(Morton, 2012) and others even to Nazis as the word ‘FORWARD’ in German translation was
used by Hitler Young Troops as a marching tune (Hoft, 2012). Last but not least, we can link
the 2012 campaign to 1996 Clinton vs. Dole presidential race with the comeback of the term
‘triangulation’ which was typical particularly for Clinton re-election campaign. ‘Triangulation is a term popularized by Clinton adviser Dick Morris to describe a politician who stands
above traditional left-right divisions and co-opts the arguments of the opposition ’ (Zelizer,
2012). Obama was similarly alleged by using triangulation several times (Frei, 2010).
As to the campaign organisation, the team consisted of some long-serving advisors. For instance, Rahm Emanuel served as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton and also during Obama’s
2008 campaign. In 2012 he switched to the leading Super PAC – Priorities USA Action – to
help Obama from grassroots and lobbying perspective (Gillum, 2012). Last historical consequence from organisational perspective regards to the Bush vs. Kerry campaign in 2004 and
the role of political action committees, interest groups and grassroots support. In 2004 the
‘527 group’ – special non-profit interest and advocacy groups – helped donate the campaign
(OpenSecrets.org, 2012d). Similarly, Super PACs played a profound role in supporting presidential candidates in 2012 as was mentioned in the ‘Givens’ part of this project.
Conclusions
Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign was unique and remarkable because of four main aspects.
First, Obama’s team took advantage of data-mining and precise targeting trend called ‘Big
Data’ which will certainly spread globally to the election campaigns in the next few years.
Obama’s team had a huge database of data from social network analyses, online social behaviour and lifestyle surveys. Second, the role of political action committees – so called Super
PACs – played a profound role in campaign financing. The battle between pro-Obama ‘Priorities USA Action’ and pro-Romney ‘Restore our Future’ was nearly important as the official
campaign communication. Third, the majority of campaign ads were negative. This trend is
not likely to reverse in the next elections. By contrast and due to the hidden rise of new economic crisis in USA (SurvivalAndProsperity.com, 2012), the campaign in the next three or
four years would be extremely negative and vivid. Last, there was a very clever linking between online campaign and grassroots volunteer engagement. As to me, the ‘Dashboard’ social network confirmed Obama’s dominance in social media field and predicted the possible
near future of political communication which will try to connect real world with virtual networks as effectively as possible.
8
Resources
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BarackObama.com (2012a). Mobile Apps. [Online]. Available from:
.
BarackObama.com (2012b). Issues. [Online]. Available from: .
BarackObama.com (2012c). Economy. [Online]. Available from: .
BarackObama.com (2012d). Forward . [Online]. Available from: .
BarackObama.com (2012e). Romney Economics. [Online]. Available from:
.
BarackObama.com (2012f). Dashboard . [Online]. Available from: .
Bobnak, P. (2012). High-Level Direct Mail from Obama's 2012 Presidential Campaign . [Online]. Available
from: .
Berr, J. (2012). Election most expensive in history. [Online]. Available from:
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Bolton, A. (2012). Obama campaign comes around to flip-flopping advice from Senate Dems . [Online]. Available from: .
Brancaccio, D. (2012). How Obama’s campaign used big data to win, and ho w coke got hacked . [Online].
Available from: .
Condon, S. (2011). Obama launches 2012 campaign with web video . [Online]. Available from:
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CBS News (2012). Poll: Decisive win for Obama in final debate . [Online]. Available from:
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Council on Foreign Relations (2012). The Candidates on U.S.-Iran Policy. [Online]. Available from:
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Dickinson, T. (2012). Inside Obama's Campaign . [Online]. Available from:
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Diffen.com (2012). Barack Obama vs.Mitt Romney. [Online]. Available from:
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FactCheck.com (2012). Dubious Denver Debate Declarations . [Online]. Available from:
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Feller (2012). Obama's Hurricane Sandy Response Shows A Subtle Campaigner . [Online]. Available from:
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Frei, M. (2010). Matt Frei's diary: Groundhog Day. [Online]. Available from:
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Gillum, J. (2012). Rahm Emanuel: Chicago mayor shifting to pro-Obama super PAC . [Online]. Available from:
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Green, J. (2012). Obama's CEO: Jim Messina Has a President to Sell . [Online]. Available from:
.
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Hacker, K. L. (2004). Presidential candidate images . Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Hoft, J. (2012). Obama’s New Campaign Slogan “Forward!” Is a Hitler Youth Marching Tune (Video).
[Online]. Available from: .
InfoPlease.org (2012). Super PACs Explained . [Online]. Available from:
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Issenberg, S. (2012). Obama’s White Whale. [Online]. Available from:
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Johnson, D. W. (2011). Campaigning in the twenty-first century: A whole new ballgame. New York: Routledge.
Kamm, N. (2012). Early exit poll: 60 per cents say economy top issue . [Online]. Available from:
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Kantor (2012). First Lady Strives for Caring Image Above Partisan Fray. [Online]. Available from:
.
Leibovich, M. (2012). What Bill Clinton has done for Barack Obama's campaign ? [Online]. Available from:
.
LivingRoomCandidate.org (2012). 2012 OBAMA VS. ROMNEY. [Online]. Available from:
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Matthews, M. (2011). Obama: Campaigning Like It's 1936 . [Online]. Available from:
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McClelland, E. (2011). Who's Running Obama's Re-Election Campaign? [Online]. Available from:
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Morton, V. (2012). New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism. [Online]. Available from:
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OpenSecrets.org (2012a). Super PACs. [Online]. Available from:
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OpenSecrets.org (2012b). 2012 Election Spending Will Reach $6 Billion, Center for Responsive Politics Pr edicts. [Online]. Available from: .
OpenSecrets.org (2012c). Barack Obama's Bundlers. [Online]. Available from:
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OpenSecrets.org (2012d). Types of Advocacy Groups. [Online]. Available from:
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Owyang, J. (2008). Snapshot of Presidential Candidate Social Networking Stats: Nov 3, 2008. [Online]. Available from: .
P2012.org (2012). Key People-President Barack Obama. [Online]. Available from:
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Palmer, N. D. (2009). Joe Biden: “Everyone Calls Me Joe”. [Online]. Available from:
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Politico.com (2012a). 2012 Swing States. [Online]. Available from: .
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Politico.com (2012b). Press: One word describes Obama . [Online]. Available from:
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Pringle, B. (2012). Top 10 Political Campaign Ads of the 2012 US Presidential Election . [Online]. Available
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.
SurvivalAndProsperity.com (2012). Sheila Bair, Stephen Roach: See Financial Crash Coming . [Online]. Available from: .
Swint, K. (2008). Mudslingers. The twenty-five dirtiest political campaigns of all time. New York: Sterling.
The Economist (2012a). The road to 270. [Online]. Available from: .
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Thiessen, M. A. (2012). Obama’s ‘Moneyball’ campaign. [Online]. Available from:
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.
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.
Younge (2010). Obama won as cool and unflappable. But presidents need to act angry too . [Online]. Available
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YouTube.com (2012b). We've Heard it All Before - Obama for America Television Ad . [Online]. Available from:
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YouTube.com (2012c). Challenges - Obama for America TV Ad . [Online]. Available from:
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Zelizer, J. (2012). Should Obama campaign like Bill Clinton did ? [Online]. Available from:
.
11
Analysing Barack Obama 2012 campaign and its historical consequences
Module: Marketing Politics
Bc. Štěpán Soukeník
Visiting Erasmus Student
Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, 2012
Executive summary
In this project Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012 is scrutinised. First, the political,
economic, social and technological aspects before the elections are presented. Second, key
stakeholders and their impact on the campaign are described. Third, Obama’s policy positioning, imagery, promotion and place are analysed. Finally, the 2012 campaign is compared with
the historical analogies.
The ‘Givens’
Several campaigns have been remembered due to the primacy or dominance in the use of new
technologies. In 1952 the first TV ad in broadcasting was used in the campaign ‘Eisenhower
answers America ’ (Wood, 1990). Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992 was the first to use the In-
ternet (Johnson, 2011). In 2008 Obama mastered the state-of-the-art social networks – Twitter
with 112 000 followers, Facebook with more than two million fans and YouTube channel
with tens of million viewers (Owyang, 2008; Johnson 2011). This year, Obama cleverly took
advantage of the sheer rise of mobile technologies (BarackObama.com, 2012a; BusinessWeek, 2012).
The sequels of economic crisis which burst out in 2008 had a huge impact on policy rhetoric
in 2012 campaign. Democrats had to strike back the verbal offensive from Romney’s team
and they needed to persuade voters that their promises will be kept and they would not knockout the American economy.
The important part of 2012 campaign was the impact of ‘Super PACs’, independent expenditure-only committees. They were founded after a federal court case known as SpeechNow.org
1
vs. Federal Election Commission in 2010 (OpenSecrets.org, 2012a). They supported a candidate with donations from companies, individuals and unions and also produced their own
campaigns (InfoPlease.org, 2012). Nonetheless, they were not a direct part of campaigns, so
they could afford to be extremely negative and rigorous. The major pro-Obama Super PAC
was ‘Priorities USA Action’. It opposed pro-Romney Super PAC ‘Restore our Future’ which
gained the most profit of all Super PACs (OpenSecrets.org, 2012).
At the end of October 2012 the eastern coast of the USA was hit by hurricane Sandy. Many
commentators discussed its impact on turnout and popular vote accumulation. For instance,
Nate Silver, whose statistical predictions of the election results were almost precise, argued
that the Sandy influence was uncertain (Silver, 2012). However, as to the exit polls by CBS
News, 42 per cents of US citizens marked Obama’s response to the hurricane as the important
factor when deciding who to vote for (Kamm, 2012). The key political specific was the role of
swing states. As a presidential candidate needs 270 votes from the Electoral College, his main
focus and campaign importance has to be given to the states comprising of Colorado, Florida,
Ohio, Virginia, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Iowa and Wisconsin (Politico.com,
2012a).
The image no. 1 (The Economist, 2012a)
The ‘Party organization’
This year, it has been the first time an incumbent president did not manage his campaign from
Washington D.C. Due to the previous Obama’s job as a senator of Illinois, the headquarters of
the campaign was set in Chicago for the reason to get closer to the grassroots and volunteers
(McClelland, 2011).
2
Obama’s key managerial team consisted of campaign manager Jim Messina, consultant David
Axelrod and lead pollster Joel Benenson. Tens of the others created the whole campaign team.
Jim Messina had already worked for Obama in 2008 campaign as the Chief of Staff. In January 2011 he became a chief campaign manager of Obama’s re-election campaign (Green,
2012). David Axelrod played a role of senior consultant with a profound experience with election campaigns since managing the successful campaign for Congressman Paul Simon in
1984. Bill Clinton also played a particular role in the late campaign (p2012.org).
Many comments were written about Bill Clinton’s influence. He endorsed Obama in the TV
spot called ‘He’s got it right’. Some called him ‘the Behind the Scene Strategist’ (Leibovich,
2012). ‘[…] President Obama’s got it right. We should invest in the middle class, education
and innovation […] and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. Sound familiar? ’ (Time.com,
2012).
As Bill Clinton’s wife Hillary was beaten by Obama in her effort to become Democrat Party
presidential candidate, many people argued about the relationship between Obama and Clinton. Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s close friend, explained that Bill Clinton is ‘[…] chiefly concerned with the direction of the country, not his relationship with anyone ’ (Leibovich, 2012).
In any case, Bill Clinton may have helped Obama’s re-election in the field of economics with
the reminder of his time of wealthy 90s.
The ‘Controllables’
Policy positioning
The negative rhetoric penetrated the campaign from policy vindication to the political advertising (LivingRoomCandidate.org, 2012). Obama’s slogan ‘FORWARD’ was used everywhere
possible. With the connection of the word ‘BACKWARD ’, Obama promoted and explained his
policy. He used six main topics of his policy issues: ‘Innovation, Taxes, Nation-Building at
Home, Energy, Education and Health Care’ (BarackObama.com, 2012b). In the sub-sections
of each issue, he argued for his policy and compared it with Mitt Romney’s quotes or issues.
However, he cited the sources of the Romney’s quotes very shallow as we may see for instance in the ‘Economics ’ section (BarackObama.com, 2012c).
Three presidential debates had a considerable impact on policy explaining and campaign flow.
The major tensions between Democrats and Republicans were in economics, healthcare and
foreign policy. For instance, Obama fought for raising taxes for wealthy people, continuing in
insurance policy and expansion of ‘Medicaid’, reset with Russia and engagement with all parties in international relations (Diffen.com, 2012; The Telegraph, 2012a). Especially US-Iran
3
relations were the striking point of Romney counter-offensive and Obama’s vindication based
on his previous attempts to restore diplomacy and good relations (Council on Foreign Relations, 2012). In the first debate on domestic policy on October 3rd, 2012 at the University of
Denver, Romney attacked Obama and won as to the majority of journalists and experts.
Obama was a bit dubious and also presented some false arguments (FactCheck.com, 2012).
However, Obama dominated in the following two debates and especially in the last one where
Romney adopted Obama’s strategies and did not manage to oppose efficiently (CBS News,
2012).
Imagery
As to Nimmo and Mansfield, we can judge the candidate images comparing following attributes: ‘honesty, integrity, intelligence, careful analysis in decision making, reasoned statesmanship and leadership, firm issue stands and a willingness to consult with others ’ (Nimmo
and Mansfield, 1985; cited in Hacker, 2004, p. 32).
Obama has got several attributes which distinguish him from his opponents and which he indeed masters. As the alumni of Harvard Law School, Obama proves his intelligence and leadership skills. His rhetoric used to be marked as excellent, though many journalists call him
‘professorial’ due to his rigid and austere style of speech (Politico.com, 2012b). Being the
first African-American President of the USA brings him the support from the minorities, especially the Latin and African communities. Coming back to the foreign policy part, he also
proves a willingness to consult with others, even though he is often described as unflappable
and reserved (Younge, 2010). Joe Biden has been the first vice-president from Delaware,
which he had represented in the US Senate for 36 years (Palmer, 2009). Together with Obama
they formed a core part of the election campaign.
The main part of campaign rhetoric was the slogan ‘FORWARD’ with the positioning ‘Four
more years’ set to vindicate the reasons for his continual presidency. ‘Four more years’ also
became the most popular tweet ever (BarackObama.com, 2012d; The Telegraph, 2012b).
The image no. 2 (Tuoutreach.com, 2012)
4
Promotions
President Obama officially started his re-election campaign on April 4th, 2011. He announced
it on his Twitter channel. He sent the official email to his supporters and publicised a video
spot in which many people advocated Obama’s re-election. The important part of the campaign start was that Obama’s team set up the headquarters in Chicago, to reach his grassroots
supporters (Condon, 2011).
The 2012 presidential race was the most expensive in US history with estimated cost of 6 billion dollars. In terms of Obama’s campaign, the so-called ‘Bundlers’ – well-connected donators – played the significant role (Berr, 2012; OpenSecrets.com, 2012b). The major Obama’s
donators were for instance Jeffrey Katzenberg from DreamWorks and Barry Meyer from
Warner Brothers (OpenSecrets.com, 2012c).
Obama’s campaign team used several types of communication tone in TV ads. Both positive
and negative spots were directed to TV and onto the official YouTube.com channel. Some of
them were positive (e.g. ‘Challenges’), others negative (e.g. ‘Collapse’ and ‘Policy’ where
Obama opposed Romney’s policy) and the campaign team also took advantages of celebrity
endorsements [Bill Clinton, Colin Powell, etc. (Youtube.com, 2012a)].
Same as in 2008, social networks and new media technologies served as the key campaign
media types. Obama used his official website BarackObama.com to provide information from
the campaign, bring the volunteers into the campaign and explain his policy and reasons to
believe. Apart of the website, many social networks were used (Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
Flickr, Instagram, Storify, Pinterest, Spotify, Tumblr and YouTube).
The code-name of Obama’s 2012 campaign was as to many commentators ‘Operation Narwhal’, because ‘[…] as an Arctic whale with a long spiral tusk […] he merged information
collected from pollsters, fundraisers, field workers and consumer databases as well as socialmedia and mobile contacts with the main Democratic voter files in the swing states into a
single massive database’ (Thiessen, 2012) and the key word of the 2012 campaign to remem-
ber was ‘Big Data ’ or the ‘Power of Data ’ (Issenberg, 2012; Brancaccio, 2012).
The significant focus within the media mix was directed to the Internet and social media in
particular, though other media formats were used and often merged and interlinked [e.g. TV
ads and YouTube (Youtube.com, 2012a)]. Obama also used very creative outdoor adversiting
with claiming that ‘our work is not done’ (AdsOfTheWorld.com, 2012).
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The image no. 3 (AdsOfTheWorld.com, 2012)
Obama’s speeches and quotes following hurricane Sandy had a huge promotional effect (Feller, 2012). We must not forget the Michelle Obama’s role in the campaign. President Obama’s
wife campaigned actively for her husband and tried to boost his public image (Kantor, 2012).
The last promotional activity to mention is the role of Super PACs and other online activities
some of which were interlinked with Obama’s campaign team and some were not. Apart from
the abovementioned pro-Obama Super PACs, the significant promotional activities were done
for instance by microsite ‘Romney Economics’ (YouTube.com, 2012b) where Obama’s team
summarised the most negative facts and data of Romney’s previous governance in Massachusetts with leading motto ‘47th out of 50 states in job creation’ (BarackObama.com, 2012e).
Place
The headquarters of Obama’s campaign team was set in Chicago and the most activity was
dedicated to the key swing states where the direct communication within road shows was
made. However, the campaign in 2012 was done by thousands of volunteers who were connected via special part of Obama’s social network called ‘Dashboard’ (BarackObama.com,
2012f). Everyone wishing to cooperate on the campaign could sign up and be connected with
campaign headquarters and other volunteers. The number of registered members on this site
got over 2 million (Dickinson, 2012).
As to the direct campaign, Obama’s team made a huge effort in communicating with his previous supporters from 2008 campaign. At the beginning, Obama sent a letter with saying for
instance that ‘I always said that our last campaign was not about me. It was always about you
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— your hopes, your dreams and the challenges you face and the possibilities you imagine.’
(Bobnak, 2012). Obama’s team used the collected data and worked on the most precise targeting they could make to persuade unconvinced voters and maintain good relations with the
faithful supporters.
The historical consequences
When scrutinising Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, we may observe many links to the
history. There are four main circles of analogies described in this part – economic environment, campaign tone, rhetoric and organisational perspective.
In 1936 incumbent Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposed Republican Alf
Landon. Roosevelt emphasised the New Deal Programme after the Great Depression in early
1930s. Here we can trace at least four similarities. The economic recession in late 2000s reminds the situation in 1930s. Obama was an incumbent president before 2012 elections same
as Roosevelt in 1936. Obama is also a member of Democratic Party (Matthews, 2011). Finally, in terms of the election success both Roosevelt and Obama won their re-elections.
Since Johnson vs. Goldwater campaign in 1964 with Daisy Girl TV ad, a mother of negative
advertising spots, negative campaigning has risen to a rigorous battle. The 2012 campaign
was probably one of the most negative in US history as more than 75 per cents of ads were
negative (LivingRoomCandidate, 2012). With 474 released ads (215 of them pro-Democratic)
it is a significant number (Pringle, 2012). Nonetheless, there were also several positive spots.
Well-known actor Morgan Freeman narrated the “Challenges” TV ad, saying: ‘Every president inherits challenges, few have faced so many. Four years later our enemies have been
brought to justice […] there are still challenges to meet […] the last thing we should do is
turn back now.’ (YouTube.com, 2012c). The positive tone and impact on continuing the pres-
idency reminds 1984 campaign between incumbent Ronald Reagan and his opponent Walter
Mondale. Particularly it regards the TV ad ‘It is morning again in America ’ (YouTube.com,
2006). Nevertheless, the spot ‘Challenges’ was more an exception in the strikes of negative
attacks.
In terms of media rhetoric, there are three possible remarks of historic campaigns. First, in
2004 Bush called Kerry a ‘flip-flopper for saying different things at different times about Iraq,
the terror war and economic policies as well’ (Swint, 2008, p. 4). Similarly, Obama’s campaign team portrayed Romney as a flip-flopper due to his varying opinions (Bolton, 2012).
Second, when Obama introduced his re-election campaign slogan ‘FORWARD’, it immediately raised controversy. Some commentators linked it to the legacy of socialists and Marxists
7
(Morton, 2012) and others even to Nazis as the word ‘FORWARD’ in German translation was
used by Hitler Young Troops as a marching tune (Hoft, 2012). Last but not least, we can link
the 2012 campaign to 1996 Clinton vs. Dole presidential race with the comeback of the term
‘triangulation’ which was typical particularly for Clinton re-election campaign. ‘Triangulation is a term popularized by Clinton adviser Dick Morris to describe a politician who stands
above traditional left-right divisions and co-opts the arguments of the opposition ’ (Zelizer,
2012). Obama was similarly alleged by using triangulation several times (Frei, 2010).
As to the campaign organisation, the team consisted of some long-serving advisors. For instance, Rahm Emanuel served as a senior advisor to Bill Clinton and also during Obama’s
2008 campaign. In 2012 he switched to the leading Super PAC – Priorities USA Action – to
help Obama from grassroots and lobbying perspective (Gillum, 2012). Last historical consequence from organisational perspective regards to the Bush vs. Kerry campaign in 2004 and
the role of political action committees, interest groups and grassroots support. In 2004 the
‘527 group’ – special non-profit interest and advocacy groups – helped donate the campaign
(OpenSecrets.org, 2012d). Similarly, Super PACs played a profound role in supporting presidential candidates in 2012 as was mentioned in the ‘Givens’ part of this project.
Conclusions
Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign was unique and remarkable because of four main aspects.
First, Obama’s team took advantage of data-mining and precise targeting trend called ‘Big
Data’ which will certainly spread globally to the election campaigns in the next few years.
Obama’s team had a huge database of data from social network analyses, online social behaviour and lifestyle surveys. Second, the role of political action committees – so called Super
PACs – played a profound role in campaign financing. The battle between pro-Obama ‘Priorities USA Action’ and pro-Romney ‘Restore our Future’ was nearly important as the official
campaign communication. Third, the majority of campaign ads were negative. This trend is
not likely to reverse in the next elections. By contrast and due to the hidden rise of new economic crisis in USA (SurvivalAndProsperity.com, 2012), the campaign in the next three or
four years would be extremely negative and vivid. Last, there was a very clever linking between online campaign and grassroots volunteer engagement. As to me, the ‘Dashboard’ social network confirmed Obama’s dominance in social media field and predicted the possible
near future of political communication which will try to connect real world with virtual networks as effectively as possible.
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