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ginning knew them by the end,
because they had just worked the
area,” Bird said. “But even if they
didn’t know them, they knew
the church that they went to, the
school they went to, their kids had
played football together.”
The Obama campaign began
placing organizers in key states
in April 2011, a full year before
Mitt Romney would even win the
GOP nomination. Those organizers plugged themselves into the
volunteer networks, known as
neighborhood teams, that were
in some cases still operating after the 2008 election.
It was quite a contrast to the
Republican model. Romney’s campaign parachuted operatives into
swing states in the late spring
and summer of 2012, and it commenced throwing phone calls and
door knocks at its lists.
“You come in, make phone
calls, you don’t really know who
you’re talking to on the other end
of the line,” Bird said, characterizing the way he thought of the
Republican ground game.
“Whereas when you look at
overall neighborhood team approach, that neighborhood team
leader is responsible for their
neighborhoods in six or eight or
HUFFINGTON
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10 precincts, and they have to own
them, an