Is Obama Investing Massively in Field Organizing?

Over the last few days, we've been tracking the Obama Money Crunch. The fact that they are toning down their TV buy is suggestive of weak fundraising. Yet, even in the face of what seems to be less than overwhelming fundraising, they are doing something very smart: trying to crush McCain in the cheaper and arguably more cost-effective realm of field organizing.

MyDD (so, yes, consider the source) runs down what it says are a series of substantive accomplishments of the Obama field team: 10 times as many staffers in Missouri than McCain, 6 offices in deep red Indiana vs. 0 for McCain, 150 staffers in Michigan.

I am in a My.BarackObama.com group for South Bend, Indiana (which I joined during the primary) and can confirm that paid Obama organizer is actively working with the group.

This is pretty smart, and another example of Obama '08 being the spiritual successor to Bush-Cheney '04.

Most campaigns, particularly at the local level, devote the lions' share of their budget to TV. As such, it is very hard to get a tactical or strategic advantage by solely advertising on television without an overwhelming cash advantage and a barren free media environment. The one legitimate example of this was the Romney campaign in Iowa, which advertised its way to an early lead with a $2 million buy. But this is the exception that proves the rule: that relatively small investment was enough to move votes 9 months out when the votes were too impressionable to matter. The failure to meet expectations and win Iowa turned out to be a fatal blow.

As a general rule of thumb, one can be a credible challenger, assuming saturation levels of TV and voter contact, if you can raise at least half of what your opponent can.

A 1.2 to 1 or even a 1.5 to 1 advantage on TV doesn't matter very much, especially at the Presidential or statewide levels. Obama's 3-to-1 advantage in Pennsylvania didn't move the needle an inch.

Clearly, a lot of money is wasted on TV. When 60 to 80 percent of a campaign's budget is going to one thing, no matter what that one thing is, something is clearly out of whack. And I'd say the same if the one thing were the Internet, or grassroots, or finance.

So what if you could shift some of those wasted resources over into a cheaper realm where it is possible to obtain a massive tactical advantage by simply spending money smarter than your opponent?

The law of diminishing returns says that the first million that you spend should get you more bang for the buck than the next million. We are long past the point of diminishing returns on TV. Why not diversify your budget and go after the 2- and 3-to-1 advantages in smaller areas with steeper growth curves? That's what Obama seems to be doing with his shrunken budget.

A portfolio with 70% of your budget in one stock is not sound. Can't the same be said for a campaign strategy?