Obama Takes Page From McCain Playbook

Barack Obama’s YouTube channel just posted a video today featuring campaign manager David Plouffe discussing their team's campaign strategy for the general election. Aided with PowerPoint slides and a handful of statistics, Plouffe gives a brief summary of where the campaign stands, the challenges ahead, and what supporters can do to help.



The video comes a few weeks after John McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis released a video (see below) outlining their team’s general election strategy. And indeed, the two videos share many similarities. Both aim to give voters an in-depth, by-the-numbers look at each candidate’s strategy for success; both delve into topics such as voter demographics, party enthusiasm, battleground states, and the importance of fundraising; and both encourage voters not only to support their campaigns from afar, but to get involved.



Of course, one can’t help but notice that whereas the Obama video goes back-and-forth between PowerPoint slides and Plouffe talking directly to the camera, the McCain video is made up exclusively of graphs and statistics—nowhere in the video do we see Davis’ face. (And clocking in at over 14 minutes, the McCain video is twice as long.)

Posting your campaign strategy to YouTube... we really do live in more transparent times.