Groundbreakers

Book excerpt: Accounts of the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns have documented widely the technological innovations made in data analytics and social media that have transformed fundraising and voter outreach, but they have failed to account for the unprecendented and dramatic increase in the numbers of people who volunteered for Obama for America. Han and McKenna argue that presidential campaigns are still about more than clicks, big data and money -- they are about boots on the ground and cultivating leaders. The organizational legacies of OFA will transform political campaigns for the foreseeable future with some of the most traditional ideas of community organizing.