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Friday, November 9, 2012

Project ORCA: The necropsy

John E at AoSHQ explains what went wrong with ORCA...

I haven't been this sad since Free Willy died...

So, the end result was that 30,000+ of the most active and fired-up volunteers were wandering around confused and frustrated when they could have been doing anything else to help. Like driving people to the polls, phone-banking, walking door-to-door, etc. We lost by fairly small margins in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Colorado. If this had worked could it have closed the gap? I sure hope not for my sanity's sake.
The bitter irony of this entire endeavor was that a supposedly small government candidate gutted the local structure of GOTV efforts in favor of a centralized, faceless organization in a far off place (in this case, their Boston headquarters). Wrap your head around that.
I'm on Twitter at @JohnEkdahl if you have any questions.

 From the Commentary story:   
Was ORCA’s failure the reason why Romney lost Virginia by almost 116,000 votes, Ohio by 103,000, Iowa by 88,000 or why Florida is still, days later, too close to call? It’s impossible to know what a Romney campaign with working GOTV technology would have been able to accomplish. Ekdahl explained that with the failure of Project ORCA’s organization and its later meltdown on Election Day “30,000+ of the most active and fired-up volunteers were wandering around confused and frustrated when they could have been doing anything else to help. Like driving people to the polls, phone-banking, walking door-to-door, etc.” The possibility that all of the efforts of Romney’s campaign, all of the enthusiasm, went unharnessed and dormant on Election Day when they could’ve at least led to a closer election result, if not a victory, is becoming beyond frustrating for thousands of his staffers, for the millions of Americans who gave their time and money to elect Mitt Romney president as they come to learn just what a disaster ORCA seems to have been.
Twitchy:  Epic Orca Disaster 
Gateway Pundit:  With the classic Oregon DOT blowing up the dead beached whale video...
The Other McCain:  Romney's Killer Fail
Gay Patriot:  New media micro targeting may be more effective than visual image...
More from Andy at AoSHQ
Ben Howe at Red State
Jerry Wilson at Goldfish and Clowns notes a target rich voter block that is going un-mined, like an oil field only reached by fracking.
Ouch.
How to prevent another ORCA beaching
Checkmate?

8 comments:

  1. Number one, what the heck difference would it have made? There's STILL only one vote per voter, and there is no legal way to change that short of the Republicans attempting voter fraud themselves.

    Number two, I am pretty sure this idea constitutes a radical invasion of voter privacy. Eavesdropping on voters as they sign in, really?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Team Romney came up with a new GOTV plan and it failed miserably. One voter per vote (unless you are a Chicago Democrat) but you have to get that voter to the poll.

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    2. Are you implying that the Democrats were defrauding? What proof do you have, other than the voices in your head?

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    3. tooqforyou, there is evidence supporting voter fraud in parts of Florida and Pennsylvania and possibly in Ohio. Probably not enough to have won Obama the election (although Allen West may have lost his seat over it), but there was shenanigans going on.

      Delete
  2. I am sorry for your loss. Oh hell, who am I kidding, I am GLAD you lost.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, either Obama's policies work or they don't. So far they really have not been working.

      Delete
  3. The unwritten story about the Romney campaign is that he hired the Meg Whitman 2010 staff (after they lost CA). He followed her primary route: Buy up the primary but with no game plan for the Fall.

    And Romney would not give any funds to the CAGOP/RPLAC b/c Whitman lost. These are the same people with slick degrees and no life experience trying to tel "Local Yokel" (I say it with pride) what to do on the campaign. Laughter usually erupts.

    I think one rule that should be instituted by the RNC and every state party is that any POTUS candidate should rise through the Party ranks first, then run for the top office.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great post. I'm going through many of these issues as well..
    My weblog : how to get rid of static cling

    ReplyDelete

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