A new job for Jim Messina

[Citizen Hats]

Both countries (US/Ger) have vastly different electorates and electoral systems. What plays well in the US may bomb in Germany. So unless Messina becomes an expert on German politics over the next couple of years I really do wonder what exactly he can bring to the table.

You comment implies that the entire SPD campaign would be directed solely from the desk of Jim Messina.  Jim Messina's skills are in organization and tactics. These can be fitted quite well

[Citizen Hats]

Messina, and the Obama camp in general, made no innovations in "framing" or indeed innovations in any field. Democratic campaign tactics have remained largely the same since Clinton. Obama's team won because they were running against crappy candidates, not because of any innovation on their part. The only thing they did differently was deliver an even higher volume of spam e-mail to unemployed students, which is obviously highly overrated.

And this is why Mortimer will never win an election.  

[Citizen Hats]

Alright, what exactly do you guys think Obama did that was so revolutionary?

They did a number of things, arguably more evolutionary than revolutionary, but nonetheless - they greatly refined the process and technique of microtargeting - developing scores based on enormous amounts of data to come up with very refined individual estimates about voter behavior. This enabled them to direct their resources where they were most effective.  They put a real emphasis on on-the-ground communications, staffing, and volunteering, placing comparatively less emphasis on the air war that had come to dominate the thinking of American political campaigns in previous decades.  They made real efforts to bring empiricism into the political process, working with actual researchers in the process of waging campaigns, and a rigorous system of testing.  

Politics: harder than you think

[Citizen Hats]

In my experience, the shakedown artists are the Republican consultants

[Citizen Hats]

'Scientific' canvassing is hardly revolutionary. Ian Mikardo was at it in the 1940s.

you might note that I said evolutionary.  They put together a lot of new and some comparatively disused techniques to produce a more effective system of campaigning. 

You mention Mikardo. Yes, politicians have been doing these sorts of things since forever, but, there are 150 million voters and civic participation has been declining for years. How do you take your limited resources for contacting and identifying who they are and use them to the best effect?  You target, and the refined targeting allows you to target all the better and focus those resources on having a better idea of who to talk to to find IDs and then on election day a better idea of who needs an extra push to the polls. 

Again nothing revolutionary, but evolutionary. It's using superior research and organization to inform the use of timeless campaign methods. 

Wow. You could be one of these consultants yourself. That's a big ass paragraph and it basically says nothing.

You might be on to something...