The One won the election on one basic tactic... good donor relations. I will look for the research and post it. The fact that he used technology well was actually secondary to good old fashioned donor relations. The guys who did the research studied what happened after a person made a donation in the case of all four primary candidates.
The best: Obama. Average time to first thank you was like one minute. Average thank you's per gift was like 10. In every email was a "donate 5$ now" button. Email or text contacts were followed by emails and texts from various people in the campaign. Donors received info before the media. Donors received emails and texts from "Barack" including a thank you right before he accepted the nomination. Good news and bad news alike was shared along with a soft ask or call to action.
The worst: McCain. A donation was followed by a letter in the mail about two to three weeks later. No additional contact.
As a professional fund raiser, I can tell you that the Obama team had their act together. The only problem is that we accidentally elected him president because he was a good fund raiser and now we are stuck with him. To bad he isn't as masterful of a leader as he was a fund raiser. Or, maybe we can start asking him to raise his own money whenever he wants to invite people to Washington for a beer because he became involved in something that was none of his business. Oh wait. He is a black man. Anything about any black man is automatically his business. My bad.
