Learning Audacity

Audacity to Win

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

I know some people feel over-exposed to or lethargic about the lessons Labour seeks to learn from the Obama campaign, but with the UK launch of campaign manager David Plouffe’s Audacity to Win recently, I’ve written a piece for this month’s Progress magazine which draws the eight most important lesson from Plouffe’s political strategy.

Those lessons are:

1.’We had our game plan and stuck to it. This was the hallmark of our campaign.’

2. ‘A staff is not an organization. A staff is there to support a local organisation.’

3. ‘Nothing was more important to our success than local Iowans talking to local Iowans.’

4. ‘Work with every community, no matter how small.’

5. ‘Door-knocking is more effective than phone-calling.’

6. ‘Metrics, metrics, metrics.’

7. ‘Don’t let your opponents define you.’

8. Negative campaigning is a last resort to be deployed only by surrogates.

I expand on how those lessons can be learned and applied by Labour over the next two and a half months in the full Progress article.

More from LabourList

DONATE HERE

Proper journalism comes at a cost.

LabourList relies on donations from readers like you to continue our news, analysis and daily newsletter briefing. 

We don’t have party funding or billionaire owners. 

If you value what we do, set up a regular donation today.

DONATE HERE