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Obama Campaign Strategy and Bicycle Racing
By spokesman | August 7, 2008
Barack Obama appears to be a casual bicyclist as can be seen in the picture below. While he is not on a racing bike nor is he outfitted as a professional bicyclist, his campaign strategy has borrowed a proven approach from professional cycling races like the Tour De France. In a multi-day stage race such as the Tour, the winner is determined based on the total time over many stages. The overall winner does not have to win all of the individual stages. The winner needs to gain over his rivals where he can and minimize losses on other stages where he is not as strong. Often it will be in the mountains or on an individual time trial that a cyclist will try to separate himself and gain time over his rivals.
Obama won a close race in the primaries to become the presumptive Democratic party nominee. He established a narrow lead by gaining where he could (in caucuses) and minimizing the impact of losses (in primary states where Hillary was the favorite). His campaign staff did a state by state analysis of each Congressional district and the rules for allocating delegates to formulate his strategy. This led to him focusing on caucuses to gain a lead and getting enough votes in specific districts in primary states to stay close in the final delegate allocation. The Washington Post had a great analysis of Obama’s primary strategy. In the end, the total difference (excluding super delegates) between Obama and Hillary was attributable to caucasus delegates. In delegate rich states where she won, he still captured many delegates and minimized the effect of those losses on his total standing. In the 2008 Tour De France Carlos Sastre won with a similar strategy. He gained time in the mountains to establish a lead over Cadel Evans. In the final time trial, Carlos Sastre did a strong ride and although he did not beat Evans on that stage, he minimized the loss of time and kept his overall lead to win the Tour. Obama also borrowed a technique from Lance Armstrong. Lance would meticulously examine the route before a race to develop his strategy. Obama’s detailed analysis of the complex rules of each state, was the basis of his strategy to get the nomination. None of his other rivals developed a similiar detailed strategy for a long campaign.
In the general election, the rules are different than in the primaries. All of the electoral votes for a state are awarded to one candidate and are not divided proportionately. However I expect Obama to apply a cycling derived strategy - maximizing his advantage where he can and minimizing his loses. The final map on election night with states colored red or blue based on which candidate receives the electoral votes may look very different this year.
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Topics: Bicycle Culture, Flotsam |
August 26th, 2008 at 12:23 am
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