The thought first struck me reading a post-election piece about the prowess of President Obama’s re-election war machine. His leadership team hired a group of behavioral scientists and tasked them with wading through a vast database of voter information. Team Obama wanted to target specific people. Undecideds. The young. Minorities. Working moms. People with college degrees. People who said they were better off than four years ago. People who voted for the Big O in 2008, and those who contributed money.
Then an army of Obama volunteers hit the ground and began knocking on the doors of these targets. The article I read said the volunteers could strike up friendly conversations at the start with these folks because they knew things like the person’s favorite movie.