Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alighieri who wrote (411869)	8/30/2008 5:52:21 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1572369

Barack’s well-oiled machine rolls on Geoff Elliott Blog \| August 30, 2008 \| 6 Comments “AMERICA, this is not a time for small plans.” Yes, well clearly. Barack Obama was speaking in front of a stadium packed to the rafters in an acceptance speech for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, the likes of which the US has never seen. An elaborate set evoking images of the West Wing, hi-tech video displays and a formidable security presence put this on a scale that easily trumped the last time a presidential candidate accepted a nomination in a big stadium setting. That was 1960 when John F. Kennedy claimed the prize in Los Angeles. What remains utterly impressive about the Obama campaign is its organisational abilities. While some grumbled about the lengthy queues to get in, the event came off without a hitch - or anything worse. Given the credible threats against him, Senator Obama’s appearance anywhere these days is a national security event, but his campaign has managed to integrate the secret service with his own campaign, as well as take over the Democratic Party machine apparatus, to run an impressive national convention. And grassroots organising through technology is a constant theme. During yesterday’s performance in Denver, the 80,000 present were asked to text message the Democratic Party number and within two hours more than 30,000 people had done so - another instant database. All this while vanquishing the biggest name in Democratic politics, the Clintons, and even shoehorning former president Bill Clinton into a convention speaking role he didn’t want to accept. Mr Clinton wanted to talk about the economy, but the Obama campaign didn’t budge and demanded a speech on national security, which he delivered and in doing so gave Senator Obama a boost in the commander-in-chief stakes. Whether the Clinton rapprochement holds is an unknown, but all up, what the past 18 months of campaigning from Senator Obama has shown is that he heads an organisation with remarkable administrative abilities. He and his team understood better than the Clintons the way the primary would unfold - a flaw in Hillary Clinton’s campaign that her husband told friends was “political malpractice” on the part of her aides. On the other hand, Senator Obama selected a baseball fanatic and something of a computer nerd, David Plouffe, to map out the US state by state. It generated a now-famous spreadsheet that the camp used to methodically pick off Senator Clinton. Now Mr Plouffe, who was raised in Delaware, is using techniques that credit card companies use to track people’s spending and has identified 55 million voting-age Americans across the country who are not registered to vote. Campaign officials reckon more than two-thirds would vote for Senator Obama. John McCain’s camp has been using Senator Obama’s undoubted celebrity against him and attacked the campaign’s decision to move from the smaller stadium around the corner in Denver to the football stadium. But yesterday, as the crowd grew, Mr Plouffe walked out on stage and said that Republicans might have wondered why the Obama camp moved the event. “I think it’s time we taught them a lesson about how to win an election,” he said. “Every day, every hour is critical. The stakes in this election are too big. We need all of you. We have to out-hustle, out-work, out-think them.” The campaign initially planned to have the crowd use their own mobile phones to reach out to voters and non-voters. But the effort would have crashed the network so instead, the campaign set up about 130 telephones throughout the stadium and attendees took turns to make calls. blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au.