close window 
Everyone can learn from President-elect Barack Obama’s successful campaign strategies, said Roland Martin, journalist and political analyst for CNN.
“People are going to be studying this election for years to come,” Martin said, in a keynote speech to the DuSable Conference November 8 at Gleacher Center.
A separate keynote given by Raymond McGuire, co-head of global investment banking for Citi institutional clients group, focused on the importance of driving revenue. Read Raymond. Read Raymond Mcguire's story.
Obama was written off by some people early on. “Let’s be honest. There were folks who had given him absolutely no chance of winning,” Martin said. While Republicans had criticized his background as a community organizer, ultimately those skills helped Obama win the presidency. “The exact same methods that Obama used when he was a community organizer were used in this campaign,” Martin said. “It was truly a bottom-up campaign.”
Obama raised interest and funds through social networking services, building on a technique used by 2004 Democratic presidential primary candidate Howard Dean. Before the first fund-raiser was held, the Obama campaign had galvanized 60,000 to 100,000 people through the use of such websites as Facebook and MySpace, Martin said. The campaign understood the “absolutely phenomenal” potential power of viral media, he said. “I think people are going to go back and study how they can use the exact same methods, whether they’re an organizational head, whether they have a non-profit, whether they’re students, whether you’re looking to lead a movement, because that is the model.”
One key to success was study and preparation. The Obama campaign focused on the map of proportional delegation to win primary elections. “The kind of discipline they had in this campaign was truly stunning,” Martin said. “They studied how you win.”
In fundraising, Obama raised small amounts of money from a large number of people, a tactic Martin said he is sure other people will mimic.
Most campaigns consist of hiring people to send to various cities. Obama’s campaign relied on a largely volunteer staff working where they already were, Martin said.
Another successful strategy: sticking to message. Everybody could sum up Obama’s message in one word: “change.” In contrast Clinton started with “experience,” then went to “change,” then went to “outrage,” Martin said. Senator John McCain constantly switched his message, too, he said.
Lastly, while other candidates used the word “I” a lot when describing what they would do in office, Obama’s strategy was inclusive. “He said ‘we’ 47 times in the [acceptance] speech Tuesday night,” Martin said.
Now it’s up to everybody to determine their place in a new vision for the country, Martin said.
Martin’s advice: don’t try to solve everybody’s problems. Start with focusing on what’s in front of you. Dedicate yourself to one thing and then give yourself an “annual report” on it, he said.
“We’ve got to stop somehow thinking that to start a building process, we’ve got to have a big meeting, achieve consensus, and then we start,” Martin said. “Nothing happens that way.”
—Mary Sue Penn
Read coverage of other speakers at this event.