The 2012 presidential campaign of Barack Obama began on April 4, 2011, when
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
, the
44th president of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
, announced his candidacy for re-election as president On September 5, 2012, he again became the nominee of the
Democratic Party for the
2012 presidential election. Along with his running mate, Vice President
Joe Biden,
Obama was opposed in the general election by former
Massachusetts Governor
The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces.
Massachusetts ...
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...
, along with various
[Shear, Michael D. (April 4, 2011) ] minor candidates from
other parties. The
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...
took place on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.
Obama's campaign headquarters was in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
and key members of
his successful campaign in 2008, such as
Jim Messina and
David Axelrod, returned to staff it. On the day of the announcement, the campaign released a promotional video showing supporters of Obama organizing for the re-election effort.
As ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'' newspaper noted, this was the first US presidential reelection campaign to use
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
and
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
for promotion.
Between early-2011 and June 30, 2012, the Obama campaign and supporters spent approximately $400 million, according to the
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...
. Obama won his reelection bid by a margin of 51.06 to 47.21%. This was the first time since
1944
Events
Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix.
January
* January 2 – WWII:
** Free French General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny is appointed to command French Army B, part of the Sixth United States Army Group in ...
, when President
Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election, that a Democratic president had won by a majority of the electoral votes and over 51% of the popular vote twice.
Early stages
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama was
inaugurated as the
44th President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
. On April 4, 2011, President Obama officially announced his candidacy for re-election.
The announcement was made via an online video titled "It Begins With Us", posted on his campaign website. The President also filled out official forms with the
FEC at that time.
President Obama did not face a significant challenge in the
Democratic primaries, with no other candidate on the ballot in all but seven states. On April 3, 2012, Obama won the Maryland and District of Columbia primaries, giving him more than the required 2,778 delegates to secure the nomination. On April 30, 2012 the campaign announced that its slogan would be "Forward".
The campaign was based in Chicago in
One Prudential Plaza
One Prudential Plaza (formerly known as the Prudential Building) is a 41-story structure in Chicago completed in 1955 as the headquarters for Prudential's Mid-America company. It was the first skyscraper built in Chicago since the Great Dep ...
, instead of in
Washington, D.C., where all other modern incumbent presidents have had their re-election headquarters. The decision to base the campaign outside of Washington was said have been taken so as to ensure grassroots support for re-election.
Fundraising
The campaign began accepting online donations on April 4, 2011, the day Obama announced his candidacy. In the first 24 hours after online donations began to be accepted, over 23,000 online donations of $200 or less were made. President Obama headlined his first campaign fundraiser in April 2011 in Chicago. He also headlined fundraisers in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
,
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
, and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
in April 2011. On April 29, 2011, it was announced that
Matthew Barzun, the
United States Ambassador to Sweden
The United States Ambassador to Sweden ( sv, Förenta Staternas ambassadör i Sverige) serves as the official diplomatic representative of the President and the Government of the United States of America to the King and the Government of the Kin ...
, would serve as finance chairman.
Many sources claim that the campaign may be the first campaign in US history to raise more than one billion dollars. In March 2011, Campaign Chairman Jim Messina asked a group of 450 top donors to raise $350,000. During the second fundraising quarter of 2011 (the first of the campaign), the campaign raised a record amount of $86,000,000. As of May 3, 2012, Obama and his team have held 130 fundraisers.
More than 550,000 individuals donated towards the campaign in the second quarter of 2011, which is a much larger number than the 180,000 individuals who donated to Obama's 2008 campaign during the first half of 2007. From the beginning of the campaign to December 31, 2011, more than 1.3 million individual donated to the campaign. The
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
community had donated a record amount so far to the campaign. As of March 31, 2012, the campaign had raised $191.7 million.
On May 10, 2012, Obama attended a fundraiser in the Los Angeles home of actor
George Clooney
George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including a British Academy Film Award, four Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards, one for his acting and the ot ...
, which raised over $15 million. The fundraiser was initially estimated to raise about $10 million, but after Obama's historic announcement of his support for same-sex marriage, the amount went up significantly. Many believed that the LGBT community and activists would donate historic amounts after the announcement.
Obama's campaign was also supported by
Priorities USA Action, an
independent expenditure
An independent expenditure, in elections in the United States, is a political campaign communication that expressly advocates for the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate that is not made in cooperation, consultation or concert wit ...
PAC Pac or PAC may refer to:
Military
* Rapid Deployment Force (Malaysia), an armed forces unit
* Patriot Advanced Capability, of the MIM-104 Patriot missile
* Civil Defense Patrols (''Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil''), Guatemalan militia and paramil ...
founded by several former Obama campaign officials, but legally prohibited from coordinating with the candidate or his campaign.
Technology
The engineering investment of the Obama 2012 campaign was unprecedented, under the leadership of CTO
Harper Reed
Harper Reed (born March 21, 1978) is an American entrepreneur and former Head of Commerce at Braintree, a subsidiary of PayPal. In 2011, he served as Chief Technology Officer for Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.
Besides his claims of ...
. Reed helped build a team of developers from tech companies like
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
,
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
,
Craigslist
Craigslist (stylized as craigslist) is an American classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, for sale, items wanted, services, community service, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.
Craig Newmark began the ...
,
Quora
Quora () is a social question-and-answer website based in Mountain View, California. It was founded on June 25, 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010. Users can collaborate by editing questions and commenting on answers that ...
,
Orbitz and
Threadless. This approach— hiring technology workers from the tech startups rather than the political realm— was novel.
A central component of that work was
Project Narwhal Project Narwhal is the name of a computer program used by the 2012 campaign by Barack Obama. It was contrasted in the Mitt Romney presidential campaign by Project Orca, so named because the orca is one of the few predators of the narwhal. Develo ...
, a centralized database of electoral information.
Dan Wagner
Daniel Maurice Wagner (born 28 July 1963) is a British Internet entrepreneur. He created MAID, one of the first online information platforms in 1984. He was later the founder and CEO of Venda, ATTRAQT, Powa Technologies and most recently, R ...
served as Chief Analytics Officer, running the 54-person analytics team out of a windowless office known as the 'cave.' His team's predictions were remarkably accurate to the actual election results.
Getting out the vote
The Obama campaign was highly effective in getting out the vote, in using technology to identify voters, and in capitalizing on growing segments of the voting population.
"President Obama won reelection, not by going after independent voters, but by going after emerging groups in the U.S. population. By race, age and gender, voters made clear that America is made up of many parts, and the Obama team captured more of them, and delivered more of them to the polls."
Events leading up to the election
Presidential debates
The
bipartisan
Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system (especially those of the United States and some other western countries), in which opposing political parties find co ...
Commission on Presidential Debates
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) is a nonprofit corporation established in 1987 under the joint sponsorship of the Democratic and Republican political parties in the United States. The CPD sponsors and produces debates for U.S. ...
(CPD) held four
debates
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, a ...
for the
2012 US presidential general election, slated for various locations around the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
in October 2012 – three of them involving the
major party
A major party is a political party that holds substantial influence in a country's politics, standing in contrast to a minor party.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Major parties hold a significant percentage of the vote in elect ...
presidential nominees (later determined to be
Democratic President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
from
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...
and former
Republican Governor
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...
of
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
), and one involving the vice-presidential nominees (Vice President
Joe Biden from
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...
and Representative
Paul Ryan
Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American former politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the vice presidential nominee i ...
of
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...
).
[Little, Morgan (July 25, 2012]
"Presidential debate formats announced, feature town hall"
''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...
''. Retrieved July 26, 2012.
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy (unofficially referred to as ''Superstorm Sandy'') was an extremely destructive and strong Atlantic hurricane, as well as the largest Atlantic hurricane on record as measured by diameter, with tropical-storm-force winds spann ...
affected the presidential campaign as well as local and state campaigns in storm-damaged areas, as it hit the New England coast a week before the election. New Jersey Governor
Chris Christie
Christopher James Christie (born September 6, 1962) is an American politician, lawyer, political commentator, lobbyist, and former federal prosecutor who served as the 55th governor of New Jersey from 2010 to 2018.
Christie, who was born in N ...
, one of
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...
's leading supporters, praised President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...
and his reaction to the hurricane and toured storm-damaged areas of his state with the president. Obama signed emergency declarations on October 28 for several states expected to be impacted by Sandy, allowing them to request federal aid and make additional preparations in advance of the storm. According to
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) is an American Republican political consultant, policy advisor, and lobbyist. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation on Augu ...
and
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
, the hurricane and its aftermath ended up helping Obama; the hurricane drew attention away from the campaigns and Obama was able to take a bipartisan position and be "presidential". The event sparked debates and discussions on climate change, which had been ignored by both parties prior to the event.
Election and victory
On November 6, 2012, Obama was re-elected for his second term as President of the United States. He won 65,915,795 popular votes and 332 electoral votes, with two states less than in his 2008 victory. In his victory speech in Chicago, he promised to "sit down with" Mitt Romney to discuss a bipartisan future for the United States.
Structure
Campaign staff and policy team
Many key people from the successful 2008 campaign returned.
David Axelrod, who was in charge of Media in 2008 and who worked in the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
as a
Senior Advisor to the President from 2009 until 2011, returned to Chicago to work on the campaign as the top communications official.
Jim Messina, who worked in the White House as
Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations from 2009 until 2011, moved to Chicago to serve as campaign manager.
Matthew Barzun, the
United States Ambassador to Sweden
The United States Ambassador to Sweden ( sv, Förenta Staternas ambassadör i Sverige) serves as the official diplomatic representative of the President and the Government of the United States of America to the King and the Government of the Kin ...
, served as finance chairman.
Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who worked at the
Democratic National Committee
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is the governing body of the United States Democratic Party. The committee coordinates strategy to support Democratic Party candidates throughout the country for local, state, and national office, as well ...
as an executive director, was named deputy campaign manager.
[Trygstad, Kyle (April 7, 2011) ] The other deputy campaign manager was
Julianna Smoot
Julianna Smoot is an American political aide and fundraiser for the Democratic Party. She served as a Deputy Manager of Barack Obama's 2012 presidential reelection campaign, having previously served as White House Social Secretary, Deputy Assistan ...
, who was the 2008 finance director and was briefly the
White House Social Secretary
The White House social secretary is responsible for the planning, coordination and execution of official social events at the White House, the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States.
Function
The social ...
.
Ben LaBolt served as national press secretary. LaBolt worked for
Sherrod Brown
Sherrod Campbell Brown (; born November 9, 1952) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Ohio, a seat which he has held since 2007. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the U.S. representative for Ohio ...
's
2006 Senate campaign, as Obama's senate press secretary, for the 2008 campaign, as a deputy
White House Press Secretary, and for
Mayor of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and ...
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
,
Katie Hogan and Adam Fetcher, who each worked on the 2008 campaign, served as deputy press secretaries.
Rahm Emanuel was expected to play a role in the campaign. Emanuel served as
White House Chief of Staff from January 2009 until October 2010 and worked on President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
's successful
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment building in Amsterdam after two of its engin ...
and
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone o ...
campaigns. Rufus Gifford served as Finance Director, Elizabeth Lowery served as Deputy Finance Director,
Jeremy Bird served as National Field Director, Marlon Marshall served as Deputy National Field Director,
Mitch Stewart served as
battleground state Director, and Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean served as Research Director.
Katherine Archuleta was named political director.
Role of vice president Biden
In October 2010, Biden said Obama had asked him to remain as his running mate for the
2012 presidential election,
but with Obama's popularity on the decline,
White House Chief of Staff William M. Daley conducted some secret polling and focus group research in late 2011 on the idea of replacing Biden on the ticket with Hillary Clinton.
The notion was dropped when the results showed no appreciable improvement for Obama,
and White House officials later said Obama had never entertained the idea.
Biden's May 2012 statement that he was "absolutely comfortable" with
same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
gained considerable public attention in comparison to Obama's position, which had been described as "evolving". Biden made his statement without administration consent, and Obama and his aides were quite irked, since Obama had planned to shift position several months later, in the build-up to the party convention, and since Biden had previously counseled the president to avoid the issue lest key Catholic voters be offended.
Gay rights advocates seized upon Biden's statement,
and within days, Obama announced that he too supported same-sex marriage, an action in part forced by Biden's remarks. Biden apologized to Obama in private for having spoken out,
while Obama acknowledged publicly it had been done from the heart.
The incident showed that Biden still struggled at times with
message discipline,
as ''Time'' wrote, "Everyone knows Biden's greatest strength is also his greatest weakness."
Relations were also strained between the vice presidential and presidential campaigns when Biden appeared to use his position to bolster fundraising contacts for a possible run for president in
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses duri ...
, and he ended up being excluded from Obama campaign strategy meetings.
The Obama campaign nevertheless valued Biden as a retail-level politician who could connect with disaffected blue-collar workers and rural residents, and he had a heavy schedule of appearances in swing states as the
reelection campaign began in earnest in spring 2012.
An August 2012 remark before a mixed-race audience that Republican proposals to relax Wall Street regulations would "put y'all back in chains" led to a similar analysis of Biden's face-to-face campaigning abilities versus his tendency to go off track.
''Time'' magazine wrote that Biden often went too far and "Along with the familiar Washington mix of neediness and overconfidence, Biden's brain is wired for more than the usual amount of goofiness."
Biden was nominated for a second term as vice president at the
2012 Democratic National Convention
The 2012 Democratic National Convention was a gathering, held from September 3–6, 2012, at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which delegates of the Democratic Party nominated President Barack Obama and Vice Presi ...
in September. Debating his Republican counterpart, Representative
Paul Ryan
Paul Davis Ryan (born January 29, 1970) is an American former politician who served as the 54th speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 2015 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the vice presidential nominee i ...
, in the
vice-presidential debate on October 11 he made a spirited and emotional defense of the Obama administration's record and energetically attacked the Republican ticket.
Campaign co-chairs
In February 2012, Obama for America (OFA) announced its list of campaign co-chairs:
#Lynnette Acosta – OFA volunteer leader from Florida
#
Marc Benioff
Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Salesforce, an enterprise cloud computing company. In September 2018, Benioff acquired ''Time (mag ...
– CEO of
Salesforce.com
Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...
#
Michael Bennet
Michael Farrand Bennet (born November 28, 1964) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Colorado, a seat he has held since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, he was appointed ...
– US Senator from Colorado
#
Julian Castro –
Mayor of San Antonio
The following is a list of mayors of San Antonio, Texas.
San Antonio operates under a council–manager form of government.Kriston CappsWhy Julián Castro's Record as Mayor of San Antonio Doesn't Necessarily Tell Us Much About His Future at HUD ...
#
Lincoln Chafee
Lincoln Davenport Chafee ( ; born March 26, 1953) is an American politician. He was mayor of Warwick, Rhode Island from 1993 to 1999, a United States Senator from 1999 to 2007, and the 74th Governor of Rhode Island from 2011 to 2015. He was a m ...
–
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
and former US Senator from Rhode Island
#Ann Cherry – Retired teacher and OFA volunteer leader from North Carolina
#
Judy Chu
Judy May Chu (born July 7, 1953) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, she has held a seat in Congress since 2009, representing until redistricting. Chu is the first Chin ...
– US Representative from the 32nd District of California
#
Emanuel Cleaver
Emanuel Cleaver II (born October 26, 1944) is a United Methodist pastor and American politician who has represented in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2005.
Cleaver represents a district that includes the southern three-fourths of Kan ...
– US Representative from the 5th District of Missouri
#
Bill Daley – Former
White House Chief of Staff to President Obama, former
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...
#Maria Elena Durazo – Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor,
AFL–CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO) is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 56 national and international unions, together representing more than 12 million ac ...
#
Dick Durbin
Richard Joseph Durbin (born November 21, 1944) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Illinois, a seat he has held since 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Durbin has served as the Senate De ...
– US Senator from Illinois
#
Rahm Emanuel
Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician and diplomat who is the current United States Ambassador to Japan. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served two terms as the 55th Mayor of Chicago from 2011 ...
–
Mayor of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and ...
#
Russ Feingold
Russell Dana Feingold ( ; born March 2, 1953) is an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Wisconsin from 1993 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee in the 2016 election for the same U ...
– Former US Senator from Wisconsin
#
Charles A. Gonzalez – US Representative from the 20th District of Texas
#Loretta Harper – High School Counselor and OFA volunteer leader from Nevada
#
Kamala Harris
Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who is the 49th vice president of the United States. She is the first female vice president and the highest-ranking female official in U.S. history, as well ...
–
Attorney General of California
The attorney general of California is the state attorney general of the Government of California. The officer's duty is to ensure that "the laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced" ( Constitution of California, Article V, Secti ...
#Sai Iyer – Student at
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virginia ...
and OFA volunteer leader from Virginia
#
Caroline Kennedy – Author, President of the
John F. Kennedy Library Foundation
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is the presidential library and museum of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917–1963), the 35th president of the United States (1961–1963). It is located on Columbia Point in the Dorchester neighbo ...
#
Eva Longoria – Actress
#Felesia Martin – OFA volunteer leader from Wisconsin
#
Vashti Murphy McKenzie
Vashti Murphy McKenzie (born May 28, 1947) is the interim president and general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. She's also a retired bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and author of six books. In ...
–
African Methodist Episcopal
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal ...
bishop
#
Tom Miller –
Iowa Attorney General
The Attorney General of Iowa is the chief legal officer of the State of Iowa, United States.
The office was created February 9, 1853. The Office of the Attorney General is housed in the Lucas State Office Building in Des Moines; the attorney gen ...
#
Kalpen Modi – Actor, former White House Associate Director for the
Office of Public Engagement
#
John Nathman – Retired
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
Admiral
Admiral is one of the highest ranks in some navies. In the Commonwealth nations and the United States, a "full" admiral is equivalent to a "full" general in the army or the air force, and is above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet ...
#
Deval Patrick
Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician, civil rights lawyer, author, and businessman who served as the 71st governor of Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015. He was first elected in 2006, succeeding Mitt Romney, who ...
–
Governor of Massachusetts
The governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is the chief executive officer of the government of Massachusetts. The governor is the head of the state cabinet and the commander-in-chief of the commonwealth's military forces.
Massachuset ...
#
Federico Peña – Former
United States Secretary of Transportation
The United States secretary of transportation is the head of the United States Department of Transportation. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to transportation. The secre ...
and
United States Secretary of Energy
#Elaine Price – Retired Ohio resident and OFA volunteer leader from Ohio
#
Penny Pritzker
Penny Sue Pritzker (born May 2, 1959) is an American billionaire businesswoman and civic leader who served as the 38th United States secretary of commerce in the Obama administration from 2013 to 2017. She was confirmed by a Senate vote of 97� ...
– Founder and CEO of PSP Capital Partners
#John Register –
US Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
Veteran and Paralympian
#
Jan Schakowsky
Janice Schakowsky ( ; née Danoff; born May 26, 1944) is an American politician who has served as the U.S. representative from since 1999. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
The district is anchored in Chicago's North Side, including mu ...
– US Representative from the
9th District of Illinois
#
Jeanne Shaheen
Cynthia Jeanne Shaheen ( ; née Bowers, born January 28, 1947) is an American retired educator and politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Hampshire since 2009. A member of the Democratic Party, Shaheen served as the 78 ...
– US Senator from New Hampshire
#
Joe Solmonese – President of the
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for ...
#
Alan Solow
Alan P. Solow, founder of Grover Strategies LLC, is a public affairs consultant, political advisor, not-for-profit activist and former lawyer. He is a former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and was ...
– Partner at DLA Piper LLP and past Chairman of the
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP; commonly Presidents' Conference) is an American non-profit organization that addresses issues of critical concern to the Jewish community, and the state of Israel in particu ...
#
Ted Strickland
Theodore Strickland (born August 4, 1941) is an American politician who was the 68th governor of Ohio, serving from 2007 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served in the United States House of Representatives, representing ...
– Former
Governor of Ohio
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
#
Antonio Villaraigosa
Antonio Ramón Villaraigosa (; né Villar Jr.; born January 23, 1953) is an American politician who served as the 41st Mayor of Los Angeles from 2005 to 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Villaraigosa was a national co-chairman of Hillary ...
–
Mayor of Los Angeles
The mayor of the City of Los Angeles is the official head and chief executive officer of Los Angeles. The officeholder is elected for a four-year term and is limited to serving no more than two terms. (Under the Constitution of California, all ...
Other initiatives
* Truth Team – growing out of the ''AttackWatch'' initiative (launched in September 2011) and ''
Fight the Smears'' (launched for the 2008 campaign), organized as a "rapid response team" to both counter instances of anti-Obama rhetoric and promote Obama's record with web video and
infographic
Infographics (a clipped compound of "information" and "graphics") are graphic visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly.Doug Newsom and Jim Haynes (2004). ''Public Relations Wr ...
s.
* GottaRegister – site encouraging
voter registration
In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise eligible to vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted to vote.
The r ...
.
* GottaVote – site providing materials to prepare voters to vote on primary days and
Election Day
Election day or polling day is the day on which general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Saturday or Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate; while in other countries elections ...
.
* Romney Economics – critical attack on Mitt Romney's record as CEO of
Bain Capital
Bain Capital is an American private investment firm based in Boston. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry se ...
and as governor of
Massachusetts
Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...
.
Public perception
Opinion polling
In a March 2011
Pew poll, Obama held an advantage of 47% to 37%, similar to the lead that former President
George W. Bush held over an unnamed Democrat in 2003 and larger than the lead former President
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again ...
held over an unnamed Republican in 1995. An August 2011
Rasmussen
The surname Rasmussen () is a Danish and Norwegian surname, meaning '' Rasmus' son''. It is the ninth-most-common surname in Denmark, shared by about 1.9% of the population. poll found that in a hypothetical race between President Obama and a generic Republican, 48% backed the generic Republican and 40% backed the President.
In February 2012, Obama held a sizable lead over both Mitt Romney (53–43) and Rick Santorum (53–42) nationally. By the end of March 2012, Obama's lead over Romney had narrowed to approximately 2.4% (46.6–44.2) nationally. An August 2012
CNN/
ORC poll found that Obama led Romney 52% to 45%. A
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...
poll conducted nearly the same time placed the two candidates 49% to 40%, with Obama in the lead.
Endorsements
See also
*
Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama began on February 10, 2007, when Barack Obama, then junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for President of the United States in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a ma ...
*
*
2012 Democratic Party presidential candidates
*
2012 Democratic National Convention
The 2012 Democratic National Convention was a gathering, held from September 3–6, 2012, at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, in which delegates of the Democratic Party nominated President Barack Obama and Vice Presi ...
*
Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign
The 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney officially began on June 2, 2011, when former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney formally announced his candidacy for the Republican Party nomination for President of the United States, at an event ...
Bibliography
*
References
External links
Barack Obama acceptance speechObama for America official campaign site
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barack Obama Presidential Campaign, 2012
Barack Obama 2012 presidential campaign
Barack Obama
Presidential campaign, 2012
Obama, Barack
Obama, Barack
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