How Obama Won

GERGEN: The emergence of this millennial generation as a force in American politics is going to be one of the biggest stories in the country over the next 20 years or so. We know from past history that when young people vote for one party a couple of times, they tend to vote for that party during their adult lifetimes in disproportionate numbers. We last saw this with Ronald Reagan, who attracted an unusual number of young people. But the rising generation of millennials is bigger than what has come before. They are even bigger than the baby-boom population, and they are much more progressive and diverse. Forty percent of millennials are minorities. They look past gender and race in ways that baby boomers do not. They embrace diversity, whereas older Americans tend to be wary or even scared of it. So this is an enormous potential asset for Democrats. We talked all along about whether Barack being black would drive away voters. Among the millennials, the fact that he was black attracted voters.

And Obama's use of technology in the campaign was a key to mobilizing them.
GERGEN: That's right. If you look at history, every major realignment in our politics is a joining together of a new generation and emerging technologies. Obama has been a pioneer in joining the powers of the Internet with the principles of community organizing. Howard Dean used the Internet for meetups — Obama used it to create a movement. It was enormously important for getting the message out, raising money and mobilizing voters. Those are the three things — message, money and mobilization — that the Obama team saw and executed on brilliantly.
HART: That's the most important point in this election. This was an election of firsts. It's the first modern election where technology enabled supporters to play a direct role in the campaign. It's the first election where citizen media dominated the dialogue. It's the first election where small money trumped the big money. It's the first election where the global economy dominated what was going on. Most important, the first African-American president. It was a total transformation. The rules have been rewritten, and we're never going to go back and play politics in the same way.

What happened to the "values voters" and the religious right?
HART: It's not that values voters disappeared — it's that the economy trumped all other issues. People saw everything around them falling apart. They may be concerned about gay rights or abortion, but their most immediate concern was their pocketbook. You could see it in the upper Midwest: an Obama sweep from Ohio and Indiana through Iowa, three states Bush won in 2004, where economic survival trumped values. The same was true with Michigan, a toss-up state that went heavily for Obama.