'The Center Holds' Sees Victory For Moderates In Obama's Win
Journalist Jonathan Alter sees the 2012 presidential contest as the most consequential election of recent times. In his new book, The Center Holds, Alter argues that President Obama's re-election prevented the country from veering sharply to the right.
Alter, who has covered eight previous presidential elections for publications such as Newsweek and The Atlantic, dissects the campaign and the events that led up to it in his book. He finds that the Obama campaign made effective use of young data geeks to microtarget voters and raise money online. And he says Republican Mitt Romney's campaign relied on Madison Avenue-style advertisers to craft a message that too often missed the mark.
By focusing on the numbers game, Alter says, the Obama campaign revolutionized more than just politics.
"There are lessons in all this that not just political campaigns but businesses are racing to learn from," Alter tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "In the past, it went the other way: Politics learned from business ... Madison Avenue values went into politics. This time, some of these techniques that are being used in politics will be increasingly used by businesses to increase sales."
The book also fills in some inside details of the frenetic campaign — from the efforts of conservative media figures to get New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie into the race to the backstory of the Florida bartender who secretly taped Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks at a fundraiser.
Alter is now a columnist for Bloomberg View and an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC.