Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign
On April 4, 2011, Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, announced his candidacy for re-election as president.[3][4] On September 5, 2012, he again became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2012 presidential election. Along with his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden,[5] Obama was opposed in the general election by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, along with various[6][7] minor candidates from other parties. The election took place on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Obama for America
Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
(2009–2017)
Joe Biden
47th Vice President of the United States
(2009–2017)
Announced: April 4, 2011
Presumptive nominee: April 3, 2012
Official nominee: September 5, 2012
Won election: November 6, 2012
Inaugurated: January 20, 2013
Jim Messina (campaign chairman)
David Axelrod (senior strategist)
Harper Reed (chief technology officer)
Michael Slaby (chief integration and innovation officer)
Stephanie Cutter (deputy campaign manager)
Brent Colburn (communications director)
Matthew Barzun (finance chairman)
Ben LaBolt (national press secretary)
Rufus Gifford (finance director)
US$738,503,770 (2012-12-31[2])
Obama's campaign headquarters was in Chicago and key members of his successful campaign in 2008, such as Jim Messina and David Axelrod, returned to staff it.[8] On the day of the announcement, the campaign released a promotional video showing supporters of Obama organizing for the re-election effort.[6] As The Guardian newspaper noted, this was the first US presidential reelection campaign to use Facebook and Twitter for promotion.[7]
Between early-2011 and June 30, 2012, the Obama campaign and supporters spent approximately $400 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.[9] Obama won his reelection bid by a margin of 51.06 to 47.21%.[10] This was the first time since 1944, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election, that a Democratic president had won by a majority of the electoral votes and over 51% of the popular vote twice.[11]
Technology[edit]
The engineering investment of the Obama 2012 campaign was unprecedented, under the leadership of CTO Harper Reed.[36] Reed helped build a team of developers from tech companies like Twitter, Google, Facebook, Craigslist, Quora, Orbitz and Threadless. This approach— hiring technology workers from the tech startups rather than the political realm— was novel.[37] A central component of that work was Project Narwhal, a centralized database of electoral information.[38]
Dan Wagner served as Chief Analytics Officer, running the 54-person analytics team out of a windowless office known as the 'cave.' His team's predictions were remarkably accurate to the actual election results.[39]
Election and victory[edit]
On November 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected for his second term as President of the United States. He won 65,915,795 popular votes and 332 electoral votes, with two states fewer than in his 2008 victory. In his victory speech in Chicago, he promised to "sit down with" Mitt Romney to discuss a bipartisan future for the United States.[47]
Structure[edit]
Campaign staff and policy team[edit]
Many key people from the successful 2008 campaign returned. David Axelrod, who was in charge of Media in 2008 and who worked in the White House as a Senior Advisor to the President from 2009 until 2011, returned to Chicago to work on the campaign as the top communications official.[48] Jim Messina, who worked in the White House as Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations from 2009 until 2011, moved to Chicago to serve as campaign manager.[49][50][51] Matthew Barzun, the United States Ambassador to Sweden, served as finance chairman.[20] Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who worked at the Democratic National Committee as an executive director, was named deputy campaign manager.[52] The other deputy campaign manager was Julianna Smoot, who was the 2008 finance director and was briefly the White House Social Secretary.[53]
Ben LaBolt served as national press secretary. LaBolt worked for Sherrod Brown's 2006 Senate campaign, as Obama's senate press secretary, for the 2008 campaign, as a deputy White House Press Secretary, and for Mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel,[52] Katie Hogan and Adam Fetcher, who each worked on the 2008 campaign, served as deputy press secretaries.[48][54] Rahm Emanuel was expected to play a role in the campaign. Emanuel served as White House Chief of Staff from January 2009 until October 2010 and worked on President Bill Clinton's successful 1992 and 1996 campaigns.[55] Rufus Gifford served as Finance Director, Elizabeth Lowery served as Deputy Finance Director, Jeremy Bird served as National Field Director, Marlon Marshall served as Deputy National Field Director, Mitch Stewart served as battleground state Director, and Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean served as Research Director.[52] Katherine Archuleta was named political director.