Obama 2012 Campaign Manager Speaks to GW College Democrats

By Sam Michel

Jim Messina, the campaign manager for President Barack Obama’s successful 2012 re-election campaign, spoke Wednesday night to the GW College Democrats on the lessons he learned from the grueling two-year job overseeing a massive $1 billion operation and revolutionizing the modern political campaign through technological advancements. In addition, he spoke about his work in the White House during President Obama’s first term, working on domestic legislation.

Before taking the podium, Messina was introduced by GW College Democrats President Spencer Dixon, who listed Messina’s impressive résumé, which included stints as Chief of Staff to both Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), who Messina called his mentor. However, his time with Baucus was cut short when he received a call from then-Senator Barack Obama in June 2008 requesting Messina to move to Chicago the following day to become Chief of Staff to the Obama 2008 campaign. In that role, Messina was responsible for overseeing a budget of $700 million. Following Obama’s win over Senator John McCain, Messina was asked to become Deputy Chief of Staff. For the next two years he oversaw the passage of President Obama’s health care bill and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. However, it was in December 2010 when the President approached Messina and asked him to manage his re-election campaign; thus fulfilling Messina’s childhood dream of running a presidential campaign. 

In planning the President’s re-election effort in Chicago, Messina described his desire to create a completely different campaign from the one in 2008. 

“If we ran a campaign based on moving the country forward, we knew we would win,” Messina said. 

Whereas the 2008 campaign largely relied on television ads and didn’t incorporate social media extensively, the 2012 campaign was played out almost entirely on Twitter and Facebook. Messina also spoke of the campaign’s desire to reach voters on a more local level through over 140 million door knocks and using supporters to talk to their neighbors and friends. This localized effort helped the campaign identify millions of undecided voters and work with these voters to complete early voting ballots. 

In reflecting on the campaign, Messina spoke highly of the technology department, which developed new apps for smart phones that helped the campaign track how many voters volunteers had reached out to. Messina also stressed the importance of not overly relying on polling data, which oversampled older and typically more conservative voters, thereby showing a much closer race than what the Obama campaign was seeing in its models. 

Moving forward, Messina said he is looking forward to getting involved with Organizing for Action, a new advocacy group that will help mobilize supporters to urge Congress to pass President Obama’s second term legislative agenda.  Messina concluded with a piece of advice he learned from his mentor, Senator Baucus. 

“In your life you should have gin and have tonic. You should have fun but also be serious when it’s needed.”