Obama and the Convention

Obama has run an amazing campaign that does a few things that most politicians have never dreamed of. First, he's been able to make people feel connected to him through small, but numerous donations. By asking for small donations, people will donate several times and each time they will feel closer to him. Typically and like McCain is doing, they are looking for the 2,400 limit donation and then they're done with you. The second prong of the strategy comes from "Obama the celebrity". You donate to him and then you see him on stage with thousands of adoring fans and he is talking about the small donations that you gave to "your" campaign. He has such high enthusiasm because of this heightened level of connectivity.

And now, he is topping it all off with what I'm sure will be an amazing event.

"Breaking the mold of traditional political Conventions, the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) today announced that Senator Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for President of the United States at Denver’s INVESCO Field at Mile High. INVESCO Field can accommodate more than 75,000 people and will be the site of the 2008 Democratic Convention’s final day of programming on Thursday, August 28, 2008."

This is genius for so many reasons.

1) He can stay in tune with his change meme.

2) He opens the doors to the general public. In fact, check out this email that I received today.

George --

I wanted you to be the first to hear the news.

At the Democratic National Convention next month, we're going to kick off the general election with an event that opens up the political process the same way we've opened it up throughout this campaign.

Barack has made it clear that this is your convention, not his.

On Thursday, August 28th, he's scheduled to formally accept the Democratic nomination in a speech at the convention hall in front of the assembled delegates.

Instead, Barack will leave the convention hall and join more than 75,000 people for a huge, free, open-air event where he will deliver his acceptance speech to the American people.

It's going to be an amazing event, and Barack would like you to join him. Free tickets will become available as the date approaches, but we've reserved a special place for a few of the people who brought us this far and who continue to drive this campaign.

If you make a donation of $5 or more between now and midnight on July 31st, you could be one of 10 supporters chosen to fly to Denver and spend two days and nights at the convention, meet Barack backstage, and watch his acceptance speech in person. Each of the ten supporters who are selected will be able to bring one guest to join them.

Make a donation now and you could have a front row seat to history:

https://donate.barackobama.com/yourconvention

We'll follow up with more details on this and other convention activities as we get closer, but please take a moment and pass this note to someone you know who might like to be there.

It will be an event you'll never forget.

Thank you,

David

David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America

The lure of this email was quite impressive. This guy knows how to appeal to people and he's only increasing his connectivity.

3) This will allow for some serious rockers. I assume Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Stevie Wonder will be there along with many others.

4) It will completely crush the GOP convention. People will see this in all it's magnitude and then watch creepy old McCain stumble over a few lines and give that creepy pedophile smile at the tightly enforced, unenthusiastic, anti-free speech GOP convention.

This whole campaign has been a graduate course in how to win run a campaign.