I’ve never seen anything like it. As I was away on a mini-vacation in a hotel with my wife, we turned on the tube and caught a glimpse of Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.  When he hit the stage, the entire stadium lit up in flashes from the cameras.  It was like a scene from the 2008 Opening Ceremony for the Olympics!  It almost seemed coordinated.

Love him or hate him, you’d be hard pressed to find an individual that generates as much emotional energy as Barack Obama.  During the crowd shots, people were in hysteria.  So what’s his secret?  They could teach an entire political science course on Obama’s campaign strategy.  His use of social media is brilliant.  With Twitter, he soaks his followers with his daily message.  He’s always referring traffic to his website and oftentimes shows speeches not availalbe on TV.  His followers are saturated in his message, and it’s not diluted by media pundits.

It reminds me of the movie, American Gangster.  It’s about notorious New York gangster, Frank Lucas.  Instead of allowing middlemen eat at his margins, Frank learns how to buy his drugs directly from China.  With fewer hands touching his drugs, Frank was able to charge less than his competition.  I know, I know, it’s a strange comparison, but it sort of makes sense. Obama has found a way to deliver the goods to his base without the help of mass media. Because of this, it doesn’t matter if his ideas don’t make sense.

Despite his ideas falling short, he still has over two million supporters online.  He started the swell with his speech at the DNC in 2004 (which has been hit on YouTube over 500K times).  Statements like “you deserve sufficient wages so you can pay your mortgage” don’t make sense to me, but it’s statements like that are creating a connection between Obama and his base.  They are highly energized, which means they’re likely to get out and vote, and more importantly for Obama, they’re likely to talk about him and help spread his message.  The best companies turn strangers into customers, and customers into sales people.  Obama has this figured out. But his number one currency right now is Trust. If he gets elected and fails to deliver on his pie in the sky promises, the trust will be gone as fast as it came.

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