He wanted to include these volunteers not only in phone banks and canvasses, but also in high-level strategy planning sessions. Include.” Since the beginning of the Democratic Primary in Iowa, Obama strove to develop a system of volunteer leaders and coordinators. Their philosophy is embodied in the motto, “Respect. Plouffe describes how their approach consisted of giving more to and expecting more from their volunteers. Many campaigns advertise themselves as volunteer-driven, but few campaigns have integrated volunteers as well as the Obama campaign.

Evaluating the 2012 campaign through Plouffe’s lens of 2008 demonstrates that a strategy emphasizing volunteers, metrics, and discipline will be just as formidable this cycle as it was in the last. I read The Audacity to Win, campaign manager David Plouffe’s account of the day in and day out decisions made on the 2008 campaign trail and became a Spring Organizing Fellow, or volunteer coordinator, for the 2012 Massachusetts campaign. Yet in January of this year, I received two opportunities to explore and understand the Obama campaign. It was a magical combination of technology, volunteers, young people, and momentum that propelled him to the Presidency. To most voters and even to those who consider themselves politically informed, Obama’s 2008 strategy is still something of a mystery. One of his greatest advantages, his electoral strategy, is rarely mentioned.

Statements about his strengths in the 2012 election cycle are much less common, and these observations usually revolve around his remarkable fundraising skills or the deep divisions within the Republican Party. He has necessarily lost the novelty, the sense of history-in-the-making, and the image of being a blank slate upon which voters could project their visions of change. Most comparisons of President Obama’s prospects of reelection in 2012 and his 2008 campaign focus on factors that he now lacks.

The audacity to win