Grassroots Mobilization and Barack Obama’s Campaign 2008

By Adam C Nisbet
“Keep it real, and keep it local. You can have the best technology in the world, but if you don’t have a
community who wants to use it and who are excited about it, then it has no purpose.”

--Chris Hughes, My.BarackObama.com online organizing guru

It was the 2004 Democratic National Convention, full of spirit and hosted by the beautiful and
historic city of Boston in July.  It was a convention that was full of hopes and great expectations with
Senator John Kerry in the top seat as the parties’ nomination for president.  Along with Sen. John Edwards
they appeared to be a nice opposition team intending to prevent Bush's second term.  All those blue and
red balloons at the Fleet Center failed to drop for twenty minutes after Kerry’s keynote speech that was
supposed to foment the Democratic Party faithful toward an election victory.  It was a clear foreshadowing
of the events ahead, and while 2004 was a decent year for Democrats in legislative offices, the party failed
to elect a president. What was remembered most about the convention was a speech from a young state
senator from Illinois, Barack Obama; as soon as the convention was over there were predictions of a 2008
campaign. 

Now, in 2009, while we are encouraged by the hope-filled inauguration of President Barack
Hussein Obama it is difficult to look back in retrospect at the matters of the 2008 campaign. However there
have been several early presumptions about how the Obama campaign out-mobilized, outfoxed, and
ultimately out-cooled the McCain campaign. Since the election results were so decisive some may suggest
there is simply no need to examine the 2008 strategies because the reasons for Obama winning are
blatantly apparent.  It is due to the sheer decisiveness in which Obama won and the climate in which he
enters the White House that it is important that we examine the reasons why he was elected. While many
have theorized that the election was won by either favorable media attention given to Obama or
overwhelming online organization, it has become apparent that the single most important thing that favored
Obama in this election was the ability of his campaign to mobilize a vast grassroots campaign, sending
people to the polls and delivering on Election Day. Every aspect of their campaign strategy was focused on
localized turnout.

Three of the most common arguments about how Obama won have been that he enjoyed a buddy-
buddy relationship with the media, because he had vast support from online groups such as Facebook, and
also due to record breaking youth turnout. Each one of these arguments highly overestimates its single

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role in the outcome of the election. I intend to examine each of these arguments in order to show that the
ultimate component that helped the campaign the most was its unwavering dedication to localized
grassroots mobilization geared towards getting people to the polls on Election Day.

Obama’s victory was most notably due to an overwhelming grassroots strategy where every unit
was used effectively.  A campaign may have all the technology and all the best media attention but cannot
win unless they are able to energized the electorate and deliver at the polls. While considering the many
variables that effected the 2008 outcome we will look to data accumulated from the 2004 presidential
election and how well John Kerry performed in particular counties and overall.

The “Buddy-Buddy” Theory

  Some argue that there was a clear media bias throughout the primary and the general election
toward one candidate. These people may be fans of the opposition candidate or basing their view on mere
media impressions, the quantitative amount of favorable media coverage in stories that Senator Obama
received through press, blogs, or on network news, as compared to Senator McCain. Either way, there
was a hasty argument made after November 5th that Obama had won due to being the media’s darling, or
buddy.

I call this the “buddy-buddy” theory. “ Would you say that the Obama campaign was buddy-buddy
with the media?” asked a member of the audience at a John Hopkins University forum on the role of media
in the 2008 election. This seemed such an audacious yet pertinent question to ask one of the Obama
campaigns’ premiere communications strategists, Anita Dunn of Squier Knapp & Dunn, political
consultants. “Were there any new strategies, or media packages, fancy dinners? ” the questioner
elaborated. Mrs. Dunn responded harshly, “Our candidate most certainly was not seen as buddy-buddy
with the media. The campaign was characterized as being inaccessible, overly controlling, of restricting
access, and being constantly not available.” Assuming this is true then it clearly demonstrates that the
Obama campaign did not seek special relationships with members of the media, they most certainly weren’t
buddies. The media did criticize Obama harshly during several periods in such instances as the Rev.
Wright episode or questioning his relationship with Bill Ayers. Apparently, the media displayed critical
balance throughout their coverage of the campaigns.

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 The media climate for the presidential campaigns in 2008 was quite inclement. The plethora of
advances in technology and telecommunications diversified the media markets and dramatically shortened
the news cycles and challenging each campaign to the onslaught of nonstop media scrutiny. In a period
later in the John Hopkins forum Anita Dunn went on to say that:

“It’s clear that the media is going through a period of restructuring as newspapers are
no longer as strong as they used to be, no longer pushing the news.  CNN has made
tons of money off of their election coverage and they have invested a great deal into
their ability to cover the election also with their virtual electoral maps.  Even several
new outlets have come on to the scene, such as Politico.com which has become a
driving force in as little as four years.” 

The turnover of stories in the media in 2008 moved with such speed and velocity fueling an
obsession with viewing the campaign as a horse race. As Anita Dunn said, “We were forced to make it up
as we went along.  What drove the stories this go around was completely different than in 2004.  The news
cycle started at 10 PM once the Nytimes stories hit the web.  Todays news cycle is now the wild west.  No
rules.” The media was putting out so many stories throughout the day and night that James Poniewozik of
Time magazine termed it the “24 minute news cycle” (Poniewozik). Many political junkies, myself included,
can relate to getting up every morning a little earlier to watch Joe Scarborough dish out the gossip on
Morning Joe, or constantly checking political blogs such as Wonkette, CNN Political Ticker, Politico, or The
Fix on Washington Post for some needed campaign dish.

With all these reasons to believe that there were no special favors or special treatment of Obama
within the media it cannot be proven that he won solely due to favorable media attention. It takes quite a bit
more to build a winning campaign than executing a great communications strategy or being favored by the
media alone.

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The Facebook Effect 

The election of 2008 will be remembered as the first time that online social action platforms, or
social networks, played a significant role in a presidential election, whether in the realms of fundraising,
communications, consciousness raising, organizing, or outreach to demographics previously unreachable
by traditional methods (Whittimore). While some people have claimed that Facebook made the difference it
was actually more to the credit of sites maintained by the campaign such as My.barackobama.com which
allowed for even the most casual volunteers to take action for the campaign. My.barackobama.com was
successful for its ability to engage campaign supporters in activities such as phonebanking, donating, voter
rolls for canvass organizing, house parties, policy scripts. Furthermore the campaign was able to support
civic involvement in the campaign through further use of technology with text applications, liveblogging
channels, providing each user with their own bandwidth to create content, and the opportunity to engage
with top-level campaign personnel (Johnson).

The sleekly designed Obama websites fully utilized all the capabilities of Web 2.0 (Johnson,
Ziegler). Since its beginning, Obama’s website used web 2.0 applications with links to flickr campaign
photos, or videos produced by the campaign available to be viewed on youtube.com, even news stories
from all outlets; it was fully integrated with every part of the web (Johnson). Later in 2007 the Obama
campaign started its own separate online social action platform called my.barackobama.com that enabled
users to fulfill specific roles within the campaign such as local organizing and phonebanking anywhere the
net was available (Johnson).

My.barackobama.com was a social action platform in that it focused on building a community of

supporters around the central purpose of electing Obama president and it enabled them to take action as
soon as they joined through the online portal. Joe Rospars, from Blue State Digital, the company that
designed the Obama sites, said that “While my.barackobama.com looks like a social network such as
Facebook, it's a more focused one. Folks are using our Web site for online donations or making phone
calls, or planning events and being active in the community, rather than to socialize (Carr).” “MyBo” as it
has been termed was the central communications portal for the campaigns supporters; they could access
their own profiles or any information needed to get further involved with the campaign (Talbot). It was
developed by a group of computer programmers from Boston called Blue State Digital, the same minds

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behind the development of Facebook. The contrasting element between My.Barackobama.com and
Facebook is what Joe Rospars says is the strategy behind the Obama site: “ Online activity is most
important when it produces offline action (Ziegler).” With MyBo the Obama campaign was able to capitalize
on the new media world and create an effective discipleship program. In addition to the organizational
benefits of MyBo, it is hard to ignore the benefits of online fundraising. Throughout the campaign Obama
was able to raise an astronomical half a billion dollars through online fundraising, and 6 million of those
contributions were $100 or less (Vargas). But the efficiency of the Obama campaign was built on the
principle that for every dollar spent on technology there should be a direct effect on eventual turnout.

While Facebook was a widely used portal where many young voters first became acquainted with
the candidates or discussed issues that were important to them it was only an addition to the Obama
campaigns’ multi level new media arsenal although a very important one. The reason that Facebook
cannot be given the bulk of the credit for Obama’s online success is because although it raised some funds
it failed to raise substantial amounts of funding for the campaign, it didn’t allow users to have direct access
to the campaign, nor did it actually appeal to a large base of the electorate. While there has been a great
amount of attention given to Facebook and its influence on the 2008 election the majority of its users are
under 30, and while two-thirds of those under 30 use Facebook, only 20 percent of people over 30 have a
profile (Stelter).

The overall impact of Facebook on this election cycle might be difficult to quantify, but it seemed to
have an extremely powerful purpose early in the election season. Facebook was used for young people to
first become acquainted with Sen. Obama. Most of these “early starters” passed their enthusiasm on
quickly to their peers, their colleagues, their family, and their community. With these phenomena the
Obama campaign enjoyed an early following that dispatched its message across the country through word
of mouth. When Obama’s team chose to unveil their vice presidential pick there was a great amount of
speculation on how his team would present the announcement. Early on the Obama camp had promised
to make their supporters the first to know about the announcement through a text message system. The
Obama camp used the text announcement to produce massive word of mouth buzz surrounding their vice
presidential pick that was said to reach 2.9 million people according to Nielson ratings (Puzzanghera). The
ability of the Obama campaign to tap into their list of supporters and react to news stories or to spread
news is remarkable. With this new introduction of broad based texting announcements the campaign
could see the messages coming in as people wanted to be put on the list to receive the text. The campaign

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would retrieve the names, activate them into the supporter lists, and watch their numbers grow (Dunn). By
overlapping many different applications of technology they were able to build an enormous network of
support that created real action and prompted their own supporters to express their points of view.

A friend of mine who had been involved in the campaign and wanted to use his tech expertise to
support the campaign began liveblogging the presidential debates. In the second debate between Sen.
Obama and Sen. McCain, he noted “at 9:34 PM: Obama talks about how young people can serve- and as
a person of this young generation I agree that service is something that is growing and hopefully will grow
with every succeeding generation. Also it’s clear that this election has seen a lot of participating from young
Americans- and it makes me excited (Pho)!” The instance of liveblogging has become a way for viewers to
share their initial response to the candidate’s statements and references and possibly refute them or
support them with additional information.

As far as the entire blogosphere is concerned the contrast could not be more clear in the attention
divided between the candidates, Obama garnered 500 million blog postings while McCain only had about
150 million posts, and that is not counting whether the posts were negative or positive (Lardinois). From
this data we can infer there was generally more of an interest in Obama’s campaign as far user generated
content was concerned.

It was the tech-savvy voters who were arriving at new ways to view and spread their opinions
about presidential elections, whether watching content on Youtube and commenting there, through their
profile page, or live-blogging the actual debates. This type of peer to peer messaging and feed back is the
real substance behind social media networks and new media in general, it was a way for the campaign to
enable its supporters to get out and spread the word across the country easily and effectively. Obama’s
team was quick to understand that, like never before, the internet was now the place where many
Americans went to discuss politics it was no longer a brick and mortar venue such as a union hall or church
– supporters could gossip about politics from any place at anytime. Although Facebook played a huge role
in the dissemination of Obama’s message it was certainly not used as a central tool of the campaign. The
benefits that Obama’s campaign reaped from Facebook occurred independently of any direct campaign
coordination; it came about without the help of the Obama campaign and was entirely user generated, non-
campaign, content as is one of the principles behind Web 2.0 media. Once again the Obama campaign
invested in technology and took a risk. There is no controlling user generated content, but Obama trusted

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in the fact that his supporters would speak positively for him. His team embraced a philosophy of
transparency and open participation that has never been seen before. President Obama has committed to
sustaining this type of transparent, open-dialouge, even in the transition to the executive branch. The
Obama transition website, Change.gov, features meeting agendas that can be commented on and also
allows people to post questions for cabinet-level nominees, which they may answer through Youtube
videos (Talbot).

Unprecedented Youth Turnout

Much speculation has surrounded the impact of young voter turnout this election season. A group
that historically has been ineffective and apathetic when it comes to turning out at the polls is now being
given the credit for catapulting Obama to the presidency. Many argue that a groundbreaking turnout of the
youth vote was due to increased attention that campaigns lavished on young voters through different forms
of media, some say it is increasing involvement, and some say it is due to emotional connections that
younger people have established with this years’ candidate. There is a startling difference in the
enthusiasm of young voters that was not present in the 2004 (Song). It seems that younger voters were
drawn to the Democrats early on in 2008 because of emotional and personal connections. Issues such as
jobs, funding for education, environment, and the economy were all top issues for the 18-29 demographic
(Hebel). For young people “This year may be different. Hillary Rodham Clinton and especially Barack
Obama have captured the imaginations of young voters who recognize their unique chance to put a woman
or African American into the White House and are expected to come to the polls today in record numbers
(Song).” This assumption became more valid when young voters in South Carolina’s Democratic primary
accounted for 14% of voters, up from 9% in 2004. Iowa experienced an astonishing 135% increase from
2004 of voters 18 to 29 during their presidential primary (Song). These numbers are incredible, and they
give support to the argument that the campaign that worked the hardest to mobilize, train, and indoctrinate
their fragment of the youth vote stood to reap huge gains, as Obama’s campaign did early on in the
primaries.

For young voters it was more than just simply voting on November 4 th, for young people in 2008
more than ever they were engaged and interacting with their peers on the social issue of voting and what it
meant to them drawing in their friends, family members, and coworkers, or other students. One 19 year old
student at UCLA stated:

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 “I can't walk down the quad without someone trying to talk to me about Obama or give me a flier. . .
. They want me to drink the Democratic Kool-Aid," (Song).

So, let’s take a look at some of the young voter numbers during the general election with some
specific emphasis placed on Virginia. Ashley Etienne, grass roots organizer for Virginia for Obama, stated
that John Kerry in 2004 won 54% of the youth vote, and in 2008 Obama won 60% of the youth vote
overall.  Although there was a slight increase in young voter turnout there was no great shift in this
particular segment of the electorate.  This argument would seem to negate the impact of youth turnout on
the election.

In a recent Pew Research survey it was found that: “58% of voters under age 30 identified or
leaned toward the Democratic Party, compared with 33% who identified or leaned toward the GOP. The
Democratic Party's current lead in party identification among young voters has more than doubled since
the 2004 campaign (Frederick).” The shifting alignment of the youth vote may foreshadow a change in
political values and partisan identification in future elections (Frederick). The CIRCLE research organization
found the youth turnout rate for the 2008 election rose to above 52% this is a rise of about 4 or 5 percent,
and for the first time ever with over 23 Million voters under 30. Considering that only 37% of this age group
turned out to vote in 1996 there has been a steadily increasing number of young voters turning out to the
polls on Election Day. In 2008 3.4 million more young people voted than in 2004. The study found that
18% of all voters were young, within the 18-29 year old age group (CIRCLE). In a state like Virginia, where
both campaigns were heavily campaigning up until November 5 th it was clear that the youth vote would
make a huge difference. If you look at the data from the previous presidential elections, in 2000, 47% of
the youth vote turned out, which, relatively, is quite large. In that year Bush won the Virginia youth vote
garnering 52% and Gore only won 41%. In 2004, 43% of this age group turned out and 46% voted for
Bush and 54% voted for Kerry. That is a harsh turn around for a voting block in only four years and this
tells us two things; one, this voter demographic can be very volatile and changes rapidly, and two, they only
turn out when motivated (CIRCLE).

Based on the assumptions on youth turnout given by the CIRCLE research organization it is safe to
assume that in Virginia in 2008 youth turnout was noticeably higher than the national average; as high as
59% in some states compared to 47% in less heavily contested states (CIRCLE). But with the youth vote,
18-29 year olds, comprising only 18% of voters it cannot be the sole reason for Obama’s decisive victory. It

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is clear that other demographic groups turned out in record numbers as well, and most new voters also
voted Democratic. African Americans, minorities, new voters, unions, teachers, all these groups turned out
in record numbers to support the Democratic candidate, and turnout across the board was very high ( The
Washington Post). In specific counties that I observed campaign efforts in the overall turnout was quite
good: Alexandria, 72.06, Arlington 76.97, Fairfax 75.68, Loudon 77.74, Prince William 74.62 ( The
Washington Post).Considering the overall turnout in Virginia was 74% percent, the turnout percentages
across the country were high, but the youth vote turnout still lagged behind the turnout of the general
population by some 20 percentage points ( The Washington Post).

If youth turnout, technology or press relations are not considered the decisive factor that won the
election for Obama then what was it? Could it be an effect caused by the correlation of all these elements?
The key factor to Obama’s success – and any campaigns success for that matter - was most notably his
campaign’s ability to create vast grassroots networks to mobilize and get out the vote on Election Day.
Although this election prompted a groundswell of youth involvement and the youth turnout was higher than
ever before that was not what propelled Obama to victory. The youth factor was only an addition to a
massive turnout and a decisive margin across many diverse social and demographic groups. What is clear
is that the end goal of the Obama campaign strategy was one thing: the ability and power to turnout voters
on Election Day. All of the campaigns strategies whether in technology or communications empowered a
network of grassroots activism which ultimately made the difference more than any other facet of the
campaign’s strategy.

Grassroots is Fundamental

Like many young voters I was quickly drawn to Obama’s campaign after meeting him in the Senate
in 2005. In the span of two years I went on countless bus rides and canvass trips which characterized the
type of grassroots support that fueled Obama’s ride to the White House. A premiere example of this
extremely effective grassroots mobilization was a group called DC for Obama which supported Obama
throughout the primaries in nearly every state.  Since the District of Colombia was already a stronghold for
Obama and carried a small amount of delegates or electoral votes the goal of DC for Obama was to travel
to different states that were crucial to Obama’s strategy for winning and influence voters through personal
contact. The numbers that they were able to mobilize through their internet organization were astounding;
in one weekend they were able to send 800 volunteers from DC to Columbus, Ohio, in the dead of winter,

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just before the state’s primary election.  These volunteers spent the weekends working in the bitter cold and
slept on the gym floor of a YMCA during the night. In several early primary states it was clear that Obama
was not a contender but it was the amount of steadfast volunteers dedicated to ground operations that
buttressed his 50 state strategy.  Before the Pennsylvania primary, DC for Obama effectively mobilized
over 1000 volunteers from DC to arrive in Philadelphia by bus and sweep the city with canvassers. 
Although in many of these key states Obama didn't win but his strength and showing there forced his
contenders to reevaluate long-term campaign strategies forcing them to compete in every state further
draining their campaign coffers.  DC for Obama’s biggest mobilization effort was called “Turning Virginia
Blue.” The organization created small teams of 4 to 10 people, called DC2VA Victory Teams, who would
then car pool from DC to areas in Virgina for canvassing and overall campaign support – all of this was
done in complete coordination with Obama for America.

It could be argued that the elections end was determined mostly by how each campaign started, in
the primaries – this is where the majority of voter building occurred. The Democrats were able to build
upon their voter base substantially throughout the primaries. For the Democrats it all began in the primary,
through this drawn out process each presidential contender registered vast numbers of new voters, and
brought new faces into the electorate, some camps were better at this than others. Whichever candidate
won their parties primary hoped to drive those new voters out during the general election. The 2008
presidential primaries saw historic increases in the amount of turn out and new registered voters who
showed up at the polls (Vu). The primary turnout in 2008 was estimated as high 58 million people, more
than in any previous primary and 64 percent of those voters voted in the Democratic primary. Overall 36
states that held primaries saw their turnout reach record numbers (Vu). It was because Obama was able to
sustain a connection with these new voters, and enthusiastic primary voters, that he was able to gain
decisive victory in November. Sustaining a relationship with these primary voters was done most
effectively through contact with grassroots volunteers.

All of the canvassing and voter contact was supported by localized messaging and there was no
place too small or too big for the teams’ reach. During one canvassing trip in Caroline County, Virginia, we
were trudging down rural gravel roads and passing by so many arbitrary house numbers that our efforts
seemed ineffective and overreaching; why would we be canvassing in the middle of no where? Upon the
next driveway, which appeared to be the longest we had seen during our six hour trek, a truck came down
the drive and we were greeted by three men, a African-American father, a son, and a grandson on their

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way to their family farm. It was after this encounter that we realized this was the reason we were here.
Obama’s campaign was not just reaching out to people on the internet, but was reaching out farther than
any traditional presidential campaign. With the massive support of grassroots volunteers Obama’s
campaign was able to reach out to every pocket, every neighborhood of supporters whether in a big city or
an isolated rural landscape.

In Loudon County it seemed that we were given a dual job, besides the canvassing and face to
face encounters we were trying to make with voters we were also leafleting prominent Democratic areas at
night with get out the vote postcards. The Virginia coordinated campaign postcard that was dropped at
residences at least one week prior to the election read: “Vote, November 4 th,” incased by two parallel red
bars. The opposite side of the card introduced the three candidates for Loudon County: Barack Obama for
President, Mark Warner for Senate, and Jim Moran for Congress. It was very clear through our volunteer
efforts that the voters on our lists were being inundated with visits and campaign literature.

Making face to face contact with voters and offering campaign literature as reminders to vote has
been deemed highly effective by political science scholars in terms of actual turnout (Nickerson). Turnout
is what mattered to the Obama campaign and they were specifically targeting sporadic voters in these
highly contested states. It seemed that the Obama campaign knew the more times it got face to face
attention with sporadic voters the better chance it had of turning those voters out for their side.

In the Arlington, Virginia campaign headquarters the volunteer field operations were managed
through Democratic voter list applications that kept records of how many times voters were contacted and
whether they were considered supporters or not. The goal was to turn sporadic voters into supporters, and
supporters into volunteers. During the day volunteers would canvass with walking sheets that displayed
the targeted houses on each street. After nightfall volunteers would head back to the office and the night
shift volunteers would log the data collected from walking sheets which would lead to projections offered to
the state and national Obama campaign. These walking lists were of extreme value to the campaign as
every detail was used to label voters and direct the campaign strategy on the ground. Overall it has been
estimated that 223 million pieces of voter identification data was collected in this manner (Talbot).
Organizing, mobilizing, and identifying voters is what led to Obama’s effective grassroots program.

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A Dynamic Race

“Peoples concerns were on their personal economic issues that they faced. People saw John McCain
as pessimistic about the economy and about the war. A campaign of hope trumps a campaign of
pessimism in troubling times (Dunn).”

There were three different mail pieces received at my house in Arlington, Virginia and only two of
them seemed to carry positive messages. There was a large light blue postcard with a profile of Obama
with all-capital letters quoting: “WE TEACH THEM THAT ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
Now Show them it’s really possible.” This mailing was sponsored by National Education Association and
arrived about a month before the election (NEA). Another mailing was titled “It’s Your Vote. Defend Your
Values. Defend Life. Defend Marriage.” The post card had a photo of bronzed baby’s shoes and the photo
of a blue-eyed baby on the opposite side. “Only you can help Republicans defend the rights of the unborn
and can help preserve marriage.” The last mail piece that is described must not have hit home with voters.
It just seems that insightful rhetoric and well orchestrated whisper campaigns didn’t work in 2008. In an
election where you saw major shifts of the electorate, a realignment of the partisan identification, and even
the clear divide in regional ideologies when viewing a county map of the country as was clear with the
South it was clear that voters were reaching for new ideas and new solutions (Nossiter, Newman).
Obama’s campaign appeared to be the calm and collected organization that was ready for any crisis.
Obama carried a positive message throughout the campaign and never once was found off-message. With
an astonishing number of volunteers spreading his message of hope around the country there is no
question why he was victorious in the 2008 presidential election.

The Change

The 2008 election was about Change, not just as a campaign slogan or an idea for a better
America – the American electorate changed in 2008. It was clear that a generation of young voters had
come into maturity and at least partially accepted the fact that they could change their country, staking their
claim on the ideological identity of the United States. “ For millions of young voters, President-elect Barack
Obama s victory was a clarion call to put aside the cynicism and disaffectedness that had defined
Generations X and Y and help change the course of the nation (Abdullah).” Civic engagement has been a
cornerstone of the Obama campaign since its beginning, drawing in voters and increasing their participation

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in government may be one of the most valuable things that the Obama campaign has done (Stark). And
with the monumental speech given at his inauguration, President Obama has shared the responsibility of
creating a better nation with all Americans. As has been the case with the Presidential Inaugural
Committee, it appears that the administration will actually be more open and accessible to constituents
through the same means in which supporters of his campaign were. In a clear break from history, the
incoming administration is making a huge effort to keep people informed and involved by allowing them to
interact through the internet on all the issues that the executive branch will face (Bettleheim). Offering
openness and transparency to his followers, and now constituents, is at the core of President Obama’s
success; his ability to organize and mobilize millions of people is certainly what led to his presidential
election victory. While many have theorized that the 2008 election was won either by favorable media
attention given to Obama or overwhelming online organization, it has become apparent that the single most
important thing that favored Obama in this election was the ability of his campaign to mobilize a vast
grassroots campaign, sending people to the polls and delivering on election day.

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 SOURCES

Abdullah, Halmah. “Obama's Moment Also Belongs to Young Voters.” Bradenton Herald, 13 January
2008. (http://www.bradenton.com/916/story/1161226.html)

Bettelheim, Adriel. “Can Obama Sustain the Interest of His Online Constitutents? So Far, Yes, Says Pew
Study.” CQ Today Online News. 31 December 2008.
(http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003001846)

Campaign for Change. “For the Change We Need Barack Obama.” Democratic Party of Virginia.
Campaign booklet, 24 pages. Obtained at Caroline County Obama campaign office 2008.
(www.vademocrats.org)

Campaign for Change. “Vote November 4 th, Vote Change.” The Democratic Party of Virginia . 5’’x 8’’
postcard. Used in get out the vote canvassing in Virginia’s Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon counties.   

Carr, David. “The Barackobama.com Difference.” Network for IT Leadership. 3 June 2008.
(http://www.ciozone.com/index.php/Management/The-Barackobama.com-Difference/SOCIAL-
NETWORKING-WITH-A-PURPOSE.html)

Dunn, Anita of Squier Knapp Dunn; Gerloff, Liz of Greenburg Quinlin & Rosner Research; Entienne, Ashley
of Virginia for Obama; Guttman, Bob of Center on Politics & Foreign Relations. 2008. “How the
Media Helped Elect Our 44th President.” Forum presented at John Hopkins University
Communications and Contemporary Society and Government Programs, Washington, DC.

Frederick, Don. “Youth vote turnout.” Los Angeles Times. 29 April 2008.
(http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/04/younger-voters.html)

Harris, John F. “How the sausage gets made.” POLITICO. 3 March 2008.
(http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/8789.html)

Heffernan, Virginia. “Facebook Politics?” The New York Times, 12 September 2008.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/magazine/14wwln-medium-t.html)

Hebel, Sara. “Obama, Helped by Youth Vote, Wins Presidency and Makes History.” The Chronicle of
Higher Education. 5 November 2008.
(http://chronicle.com/free/2008/11/6653n.htm)

Helderman, Rosalind S. “Election Turnout Falls Short Of Forecasts.” The Washington Post. 16 November
2008.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/15/AR2008111502455.html)

Johnson, Steve. “Version 2.0 of Barack Obama Website ready for prime time.” The Chicago Tribune. 15
February 2007.
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