By Lisa DiCarlucci

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, gave insight about the campaign’s win when he spoke at the University on Thursday as a part of the Define ’09 lecture series. Plouffe, described by President Obama as the “unsung hero of the campaign,” discussed in detail the long road to the 2008 election, the importance of consistency in politics and the vitality of the young vote.

The reoccurring theme of Plouffe’s speech was how the Obama campaign won, despite having the odds against it. He described winning the election as “improbable” and “the longest of shots.” However, the candidate was eventually rewarded for his decision to move forward anyway. “We couldn’t make decisions based on the likelihood of winning,” Plouffe said.

Plouffe spoke, in detail, of the strategies that the Obama campaign felt was essential to their win. “We wanted to run a grassroots campaign,” Plouffe explained, because he knew that the only way to build a strong support base in each state was to have the voters closely involved.

He spoke of how fortunate they were to have so many Obama supporters willing to dedicate their time because volunteering has been dying out in recent years. Plouffe credited these volunteers with the seamless transition when actual campaign staff members moved into each state, making for effective and efficient campaigning.

Another resource the Obama campaign used to their advantage was Internet technology. Plouffe recalled finding statistics at the beginning of the campaign that said that 70 percent of people over 65 used e-mail and the Internet regularly. Plouffe recognized the power and capability to instantly reach masses. Americans use the Internet for just about everything else, “so why should engagement in politics be separate from that?” Plouffe said.

Even more than technology, Plouffe said he recognized the invaluable resource that was the 18-30 age group voters. “It was a necessity, and it became our driving force to make the electorate younger,” Plouffe said. He detailed how they organized colleges, especially in Iowa, to get students to the caucuses. When they focused on young voters they found success, because students appreciated the attention and concern they were being shown by the Obama campaign. “Barack would meet with 10 high school kids at a time, because that’s what this is about,” Plouffe said.

As Plouffe moved on to discuss the general election, he attributed much of his success to consistency. “You have to be willing to commit yourself to a course and stick to it,” Plouffe said. “Our message didn’t change much.”

Plouffe also took a couple of shots at Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign strategies. “They deserve to hang in the hall of political malpractice,” Plouffe said referring to McCain’s failure to come up with a powerful economic campaign with strong differences from George W. Bush’s policies.

“[McCain] had eight months, we had five,” Plouffe said. He also described McCain’s break from the campaign to help with economic issues. “McCain wandered around Washington, trying to be helpful.” Obama’s response, Plouffe recalled, was, “a president needs to be able to do more than one thing at a time”.

Plouffe answered questions from the audience, the majority of which asked for response to specific decisions such as Obama’s 30-minute television program and his refusal to accept federal money. Plouffe summed up the campaign strategy when he said, “Every time we did the unconventional or hard thing, we benefited.”

Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe enlightened students about how the campaign managed to make its “improbable” win. (Lisa DiCarlucci)

(Lisa DiCarlucci)