Zeke Miller at Buzzfeed has this funny story of last week's summit in Boston.
At Harvard, GOP staffers sit at Axelrod's feet. “We weren't even running in the same race.”
The evening-and-a-day conference is the tenth in a 40-year tradition of analyzing winning and losing campaigns. It is, the Institute says, convened “in an effort to allow future candidates, managers, journalists and scholars to better understand the nature of modern presidential campaigns. This year, the line between students and teachers is clear. The Obama team spent much of the morning at the Charles Hotel, and skipped the session at which Romney aides and their Republican primary opponents discussed the bitter nominating process, trading strategies and regrets.
When it was the Obama team’s turn to discuss their strategy, the room was packed with Republicans.
Rarely has it been as obvious as it was in 2012 that one side has fallen badly behind on the technology and techniques of politics. From the basic communications tool of mass email to the vital new frontier of big political data, the Obama campaign’s strategy and tactics have drawn a level of excitement that is, among political professionals at least, notably greater than the excitement around the candidate’s message or his hard-won victory.
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When it was finally over, more than one Republican walked out shaking his head.
“We weren’t even running in the same race,” one downtrodden Romney aide told BuzzFeed after hearing the details of the Obama operation. “They were just amazing.”