GWEN IFILL: I thought it was interesting to see what you wrote about deep in the bowels of the operation of the actual campaign in Chicago. They’re leaving nothing to chance.
JEFF ZELENY: Leaving nothing to chance at all. I took a visit to the headquarters last week and I was stunned by the size of it – 300 people are working in Chicago. A lot more than that are working across the country. And they are using every new tool at their disposal. And they’re doing – the campaign has a chief scientist. And I asked to meet that person.
MS. IFILL: What’s that?
MR. ZELENY: And they said, no. He’s in the black box. He’s sort of pilot. But what it means is they are really using every – you know, through Facebook and social media and analytics that companies use to try and find out consumer preferences. They are trying to go and find more Barack Obama supporters to give them small dollar contributions and other things. And one of the reasons is because all of the ones who supported him last time are not engaged this time. Some were turned off. Some have moved on, et cetera. But they are leaving nothing to chance. It’s going to be only a small – if this is a close election, which it is, it’s on the margins. Things like this could matter. And they have the money to do it.
–Washington Week with Gwen Ifill, Friday, March 9, 2012
Moving the country to the left. We have to do it.
The right’s strategy was (at least partially) to declare victory and then start marching triumphant. And by pretending they had taken over, they really took over.
Let’s pretend that leaving our neighbors to their medical ills and our roads to the corporate caretakers is the outrage it is, and that no sane person could possibly wish to set up a society in which the rich contribute at the same level as the poor. Let’s then just start marching triumphant and see who joins up.