Why Obama made it to the whitehouse and McCain didnt
This morning i awoke to the news of a historic event that completely dominated, the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. It’s not often in the world we see moments like this, the last in memory was the Election of Nelson Mandela. In some ways Obama reminds me of Nelson Mandela, very inspirational.
Driving into a clients premises this morning, i heard one of the security guards mention Obama. So i chatted to him, asked him a few questions.
Who would he support?
He said Obama, i asked why? And his answer was
“Obama is change and he’s black!”
Let me paint this clearer,
Security guards are on the lower end of the Salary scale here in South Africa. They earn a menial salary. He most likely has no access to the internet, no computer and he may own a low end mobile phone but that’s it. He has no car and relies on public transport in mini bus taxis.
Yet his response was
“Obama is Change”
Read that again, not stands for change, not will make things change, not will initiate change
He IS change
While i was driving off from the security gates, he asks me if i think he will do anything good, i respond with “that remains to be seen”.
He responds with
“Never trust a black man”
This was a joke, considering he was black as well. I bet if i had asked him what did McCain stood for he would not be able to answer. Can you ?
What’s the point?
Even here in South Africa, the average man on the street knew what Obama stood for (Change), have a look at the video below where South Africans are questioned on the US elections. Count the number of times, change is mentioned in the video below. Some of the comments could have been scripted by Obama’s campaign team.
You can read this huge report from technology review on how Obama did it, but the technology did not really matter, It just amplified the message. When you boil it down… to the core
Obama never ran a campaign….
He lead a Movement for change….
There is a wealth of difference in this, it’s the difference between engaging vs speaking at, between top down vs bottom up, allowing people passionate about something to do something vs trying to control and tell people what needs to be done.
He recognized people were unhappy with the things were, the world was unhappy and change was what they needed. And he used that message, the message was simple and sticky, so simple and so sticky that even a security guard, earning a menial salary, half way across the world knew what he stood for. Compare his to McCain’s, do you know what it was? “Reform, Prosperity, Peace”?
When you get rid of the technology, social media and the way it was run… when you boil it down….
He stood for something, he made the message sticky and he spread it far and wide….
That’s how he did it…
Tagged as mccain, Obama, South Africa, usa + Categorized as Uncategorized