Obama Zombies: How the Obama Machine Brainwashed My Generation

  B.H.O.'s online legions were largely the work of Chris Hughes and Joe Rospars, two twenty-somethings who changed the game of online politicking. Even if the name Chris Hughes doesn't ring a bell, I'm sure you've heard of his creation: a little something called Facebook. Yep, that's right--the cocreator of Facebook, the most interactive, innovative, and popular community forum to date--was part of B.H.O.'s online operation. As a McCain-Palin online adviser self-deprecatingly observed, "Memo to self: next time get the co-founder of Facebook on your team."10

  Joe Rospars, cofounder of marketing firm Blue State Digital, oversaw the campaign's new media progress. Rospars is no stranger to the online world himself, having worked on Howard Dean's Web team before Dean imploded with his "I have a scream" speech.11 After the infamous episode, Rospars and two other Deaniacs founded Blue State Digital, an Internet strategy firm designed to beef up online fund-raising, voter outreach, and social networking for liberal politicians and causes. These "Boston geeks," as one paper called them,12 did online work for both Ted Kennedy and John Kerry before getting hired by the Obama campaign to create and run what turned out to be the ultimate Web-based political machine.

  The online operation surrounded B.H.O.'s website, my.barack obama.com, or MyBO for short. MyBO was an interactive hub that identified and connected supporters with each other, planned events, encouraged community blogs, raised money, provided talking points and campaign logos, generated field material for door-to-door interaction, and stacked volunteers to man phone banks. MyBO was the one-stop-shop for the Obama campaign. It succeeded beyond expectations. As one report put it, "By the time the campaign was over, volunteers [on MyBO] had created more than 2 million profiles on the site, planned 200,000 offline events, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blogs, and raised $30 million on 70,000 personal fund-raising pages."13 Whoa!

  Rospars and Hughes were asked to build a movement, to build a community of Obama Zombies, and that's exactly what they did. Hughes said he brought Facebook's founding principles to the Obama campaign: "Keep it real, and keep it local." As the New York Times reported, "Hughes wanted Mr. Obama's social network to mirror the off-line world the same way that Facebook does--by fostering more meaningful connections by attending neighborhood meetings and calling on people who were part of their daily lives. The Internet served as the connective tissue."14

  Two million profiles; 200,000 planned events; 70,000 personal fund-raising pledges. He certainly fostered "meaningful connections." One of those events was organized by Zombie Valli Frausto. After seeing B.H.O. on Oprah, Frausto said, "I've never been involved in a political campaign before, but it was like a call to action for me." She told the Boston Globe that "the way he [Obama] put his campaign together, with all these tools available to us, it allowed me to get involved."15

  The Globe chronicled Zombie Frausto's interactivity through B.H.O.'s Web operation in the key state of Ohio, noting that through MyBO more than three hundred support groups were established. "When Frausto attended her first meeting of Obama supporters from around Ohio's capital city [before the primaries], about 40 people showed up. Today, groups she identifies with around Columbus have about 1,700 Obama backers." The army of online supporters organized multiple festivals, fairs, fund-raisers, phone banks, brainstorming sessions, and happy hour gatherings. "It was all done through my.barackobama.com," Frausto said. "We would not exist if not for that tool. It's phenomenal to me."

  So how did MyBO assist with new votes? One feature offered was an "online calling-and-canvassing tool" referred to as Neighbor-to-Neighbor. It worked as follows. After logging on to MyBO, and through proper training (mostly viral), users were allowed to access a list of their neighbors who were undecided or who were categorized as "leaning Obama." According to tech industry leaders, MyBO was "highly integrated with data sets--geography, age, profession, languages, military service--to match volunteers with undecideds they might relate to."16 All in all, volunteers used this specific instrument on MyBO to make nearly 8 million calls.17

  Some states even held contests on who could make the most phone calls. In Ohio, for instance, the top ten call makers won a meeting with Dear Leader himself.18 Can you think of a more fitting reward for the Zombies?

  This level of "microtargeting" by Team Obama was the norm. Students who joined an Obama Facebook group were immediately contacted by the campaign. After studying the person's Facebook profile, "you have a common ground to talk to them about something," said Menno Goedman, an Obama volunteer. Once rapport was established, the new Facebook groupie was invited to an Obama event.19 "It's one thing to get somebody to sign an online pledge saying, 'I'll vote for Obama.' But it's another to look them in the eye and get that same promise,"20 Goedman added. On Election Day itself, more than 15 million people logged onto Facebook to follow what was happening and to encourage friends to vote.21

  Such "peer pressure" to garner support for Barack was actually a centerpiece of the campaign's website. MyBO users saw an "activity index" that measured how hard they were working to get Obama elected.22 B.H.O.'s team defined "activity" as "calls made to voter lists, events hosted, and funds raised." A ranking of between 1 and 10 was given. And the rankings were made public, on purpose, to other members of MyBO. As BusinessWeek remarked, "It could be uncomfortable to be exposed to friends and fellow supporters as having done little for a shared cause. It would be especially embarrassing if a member's friends learned they hadn't even bothered to vote."23 Uncomfortable? Bad word choice, BusinessWeek! Refraining from campaigning for the Messiah would be nothing short of blasphemy!

  * * *

  TEAM OBAMA WAS always adroit on the Internet front. Not until the 2006 midterm elections did Facebook allow candidates to create profile pages. This came before the era of Facebook fan pages, which companies, celebrities, and laymen now use with increasing regularity. In 2006, Obama wanted a profile, even though he wasn't an official candidate. "I liked the Facebook idea,"24 said Jim Brayton, who handled Obama's U.S. Senate online operations. Obama and his people immediately realized the potential. "We quickly wanted to be able to do more with it," he added.

  It was actually B.H.O.'s online presence that gave him the advantage in states throughout the primary. Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, described the upper hand this way:

  When we turned to the community, they were there. We sent staff into Colorado and Missouri for caucuses, and the staff was already half-organized. We were there to support the people, but that simply would have not have been possible if we did not have a set of online tools that enabled us to do that. It wasn't just a tactic.25

  To Plouffe, Chris Hughes made that happen. "Technology has always been used as a net to capture people in a campaign or cause, but not to organize. Chris saw what was possible before anyone else."26

  Connecting people and sharing information in rapid speed: that was the name of the game. "People have always communicated, organized around campaigns," explained Hughes. "We just made it easier." And the resources flowed. "Our team just exploded in size," said Nikki Sutton, Obama's voter-contact manager. Of MyBO's versatility, one official bragged: "Everywhere we went, we could plug in a zip code, and a list of really excited volunteers would pop up."

  Without a robust online strategy, Plouffe admits his candidate's chances would've gone up in smoke: "Indiana? North Carolina? We wouldn't have won those states without the grassroots."27 Plouffe also observed that they "were able to build a state-by-state organization during the primaries because of the Internet."28

  When Obama defeated Hillary Clinton in the Virginia primary, local B.H.O. organizers credited the Internet team. "We couldn't have done this without the MyBO site," said Marcia Carlyn, a volunteer in Loudoun County. Even Obama staffers were stunned by what MyBO accomplished. According to Jeremy Bird, the Zombie director for Maryland, grassroots organizers in his state had used MyBO to set up "an office with seven computers, phone lines, a state structure, county chairs, and meetings every other Saturday."29

/>   In the end, Obama's Internet team consisted of ninety people.30 Yes, you read that right. Ninety peeps concentrating on the One's online message. And they were integrated into every portion of the campaign. They weren't shoved off to the side like some disposable "techie." In fact, Joe Rospars maintained that in order to build a powerhouse online animal it must be synergized with communications, finance, and grassroots organizing.31 It just so happens that raising more than $700 million will produce that type of synergy.

  Meanwhile, McCain was still fiddling with an abacus.

  COLLEGE STUDENTS IN swing states were heavily targeted by Obama's digital minions. Through MyBO, students were asked to submit their home state and the state in which they attend school. After gleaning that information, B.H.O.'s team would determine which state was most important for them to win and encourage students to register there. Overall, MyBO registered a million people, whereas around two thousand paid staffers and volunteers were needed to register the same number of people by going door-to-door.32

  The online strategy was a massive success: The top Internet searches for Yahoo in 2008 included Britney Spears, WWE, and . . . Barack Obama.

  Besides MyBO and Facebook outreach, Team Obama broke the backs of their opponents using YouTube and text messaging. Obama's YouTube channel was headed by Kate Albright-Hanna, an Emmy-winning CNN producer who was acquired by the campaign to flood YouTube and BarackTV, the video section of BarackObama .com, with as much content as possible. And flood she did. Remember that B.H.O. had more than eighteen hundred official videos . . . six times the number of official McCain videos! Obama's mug was everywhere during the campaign (and sadly, still is). His videographers filmed in all different angles, from "rallying his troops in his Chicago headquarters, scrimmaging with the University of North Carolina men's basketball team, mingling with the regulars at a barbershop in South Carolina, helping out with a phone bank in Colorado."33 We saw Obama from every flattering, manipulated angle.

  But not only did the campaign post the videos to YouTube and MyBO, it also "screened them at rallies and e-mailed them to voters who could not attend. Videos became part of the campaign's rapid responses and a presence on the personal pages of social network users."34

  David Plouffe, in particular, was quite the YouTube aficionado. He'd routinely give updates to subscribers of their page on how the campaign was progressing. These videos included fund-raising pitches and viral get-out-the-vote strategy sessions. He also used it to respond directly to John McCain's attack ads. For instance, two weeks before the election, Plouffe posted a video on YouTube telling subscribers that "John McCain's campaign is 100 percent negative" and doesn't have any "positive ideas" to strengthen the country. As an example, Plouffe played some of the "vile" ads to show the viewers how "nasty" McCain was getting. Plouffe went on to play the clip of Sarah Palin accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists." (That would be Bill Ayers, folks.) Plouffe reminded the online audience to continue to knock on doors, send emails, and donate money to fight the "unprecedented sleaze factory." Wrapping up the video, Plouffe called on all the Zombies to get "ferocious" for Obama.35

  Plouffe had many of these videos. They were quick and to the point. And they added a personal touch, talking to the viewers as though they were all in this together. It was, as Joe Rospars said, lowering "the barriers to participating through technology, and to raise expectations about what we need from our supporters."36

  YouTube was also used as a powerful defensive weapon. After B.H.O.'s Philadelphia speech on race, the campaign created a video featuring students at a high school in the Bronx, New York. The video shows black and Hispanic students watching Obama's speech and nodding in approval like the good Zombies they are. Once Obama's speech concluded, the students are seen discussing their own school's racial atmosphere. "I like . . . how [Obama] always says blacks, whites, Spanish, Asian," says a junior on camera. "He says all the races, so you can see that he's not focused on one group of people."37 Another Zombie adds: "Just the fact that he wants to unify the country . . . everybody is agreeing because we're tired of dividing Republicans, Democrats, black, white, Asian. It's tiring."38

  Of course the video was pure agitprop, attempting to position Obama as this racial harmonizer even though he sat in the pews of a church whose pastor was a racial divider. But the rapid response was effective and well produced, and like all of B.H.O.'s material, it offered us a candidate who never did exist.

  The thirty-seven-minute speech on race itself at Independence Hall in Philadelphia was packaged as an online video and was viewed in its entirety by more than 6 million people--no commercial breaks and no color commentary. YouTube was one of the ways to bypass the mainstream media (even though they were in the tank for him anyway) and speak directly with supporters, with links to the campaign website and a "Contribute" button that enabled those watching the video to donate up to $1,000 using Google Checkout. McCain didn't offer this option.39 At all.

  OKAY, SO HAVING B.H.O.'s campaign manager make personal appeals to you on your YouTube account is a powerful appeal. But so is getting a text message from him, and one from Barack, the Messiah, himself.

  Besides employing one of the founders of Facebook and an award-winning producer from CNN, B.H.O. added a savvy public relations entrepreneur who whipped up the idea for mobilizing voters through text messaging. Originally the campaign was skeptical, as such an idea had never been practiced on a large scale before. And plus, it does cost money to send and receive text messages. Would the payoff be worth it? Um, I'm gonna go with "yes."

  At first the campaign started off small, just sending out dozens of texts here and there, asking supporters to tune in to a debate and reply back with thoughts on how B.H.O. did. But as the primaries and caucuses got closer, the text outreach started to yield results. When Oprah Winfrey addressed a rally of twenty-nine thousand people in South Carolina, campaign officials asked the crowd to text "SC" to a specific Obama number. Thousands of cell phone numbers just like that! The campaign also printed more than thirty thousand fliers with contact information of undecided voters and a call script with instructions on what to say over the phone.

  The script read: "Hello,---- . This is [your name]. I am calling from Williams-Brice stadium where several thousand South Carolinians are gathered to see Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his supporter Oprah Winfrey."40 According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this stunt turned out to be the largest phone bank ever.41 B.H.O. eventually won South Carolina by a 28-point margin.

  The campaign continued to collect a gold mine of cell numbers, and especially when they announced that if you texted your number to the campaign, Barack himself would notify you of his vice presidential pick first--via text messaging! The cell numbers poured in.

  Once the campaign had your cell number, they were going to use it: asking for financial support, encouraging you to vote, encouraging your friends to vote. It was a personal appeal directly to you. "To me, texting is the most personal form of communi- cation," said Scott Goodstein, the Obama official who hatched the scheme. "Your phone is with you almost all the time. You're texting with your girlfriend. You're texting with your friends. Now you're texting with Barack."42

  The real text-messaging coup occurred at the Democratic National Convention. While the seventy-five thousand supporters were shuffling into Invesco Field in Denver, the Obama team turned them into campaign volunteers. Obama's Colorado director, Ray Rivera, asked the crowd to pull out their cell phones and send a text message to a designated number. "We're going to do some work," he said. Of this strategy, the Associated Press noted that "the speech itself may or may not become a seminal moment in the campaign" but instead "a shrewd and groundbreaking calculation to expand Obama's vote base."43

  If you're thinking it, you're correct: that was seventy-five thousand new numbers--direct contacts--added in one night. Do you even need to ask if McCain's people added text-messaging features to their outreach? Please, don't.

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sp; In addition to the text messages, Obama's campaign arranged 130 telephone stations throughout Invesco and asked attendees to take turns making "scripted" calls to unregistered eligible voters. Young people were the specific target. Through microtargeting techniques, B.H.O.'s legions identified 170,000 people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four in Missouri who were eligible, but unregistered to vote.44 Guess who got a call from Invesco Field?

  Text messaging zipped at lightning speed also helped manufacture crowds. Before Obama hit up a rally in Colorado, his online crew sent a text to his supporters in the area saying "Rally with Barack in Denver this Sunday!" along with an address and a reminder that it was "Free & open to public." More than one hundred thousand people descended from all over Colorado to attend this gathering in a key battleground state that His Holiness eventually won.45 Voila: how to create an Obama Zombie, text-messaging-style. All in all, Team Obama collected a million cell numbers through their text-messaging outreach.

  And what would be a discussion about new media without mentioning the O-phone? Yes, Obama even had his own ringtone! Before the election, Rospars and company unveiled an application for the iPhone that, like any good Zombie material, was advertised as a "comprehensive connection to the heart of Barack Obama."46 The application even featured portions of Obama's speeches "mashed up" into ringtones. Sadly, campaign officials declined to include sermons from the radical reverend Jeremiah Wright and book readings from the terrorist Bill Ayers mixing to the beats of the Black Eyed Peas.

  In addition to fluffy Obama speeches, the application served as a mini MyBO, enabling volunteers to organize their phone directory so that those individuals located in contested states appeared first.47 The New York Times observed that "Obama will have not just a political base, but a database, millions of names of supporters who can be engaged almost instantly."48