It's the Strategy, Stupid!

As is made abundantly clear in It's the Incompetence, Stupid, you can have all the technology money can buy and still be a bad campaign. Both the Democrats and Republicans used technology in new and different ways in the last campaign, but - and it pains me to say this - the Republicans just did it better.

In Narrowcasting in Ohio the author discusses how both parties used narrowcasting to persuade and mobilize voters in the crucial swing state of Ohio. Ignoring the authors snarky comments about what ACT might have included in their PDA videos, it gives a balanced overview of the ground organization of each campaign. It doesn't, however, tell you why we lost. Here is my theory:

The Democrats organized their ground game to win in the blue areas - diverse, urban areas.
The Republicans organized their ground game to win in red areas - suburbs, exurbs, rural areas.
There are more electoral votes in red areas than blue.

Pretty simple, eh?

When you live in a city, everyone is a stranger. It's no big deal to learn about candidates from a stranger on the phone or on your doorstep. However, when you live anywhere else, you don't really trust strangers. In the Midwest, we trust other Midwesterners more than people from, say, Oregon. We especially don't trust people from California - they are all just hippie freaks to us.

When you need to persuade a group of Midwesterners to vote one way or another, you don't send Californians or New Yorkers or Alabamans. You send Midwesterners! Preferably Ohioans - from their city - who went to their high school and know their sister.

The Bush team used technology, but they used it connect neighbors with neighbors - not too show fancy videos - and that made all the difference.