Running a company is far more than an exercise in marketing.
No it's also about LOGISTICS (sorry for the caps, but you obviously missed my previous italics!)
It occurs to me that you are arguing about this because you don't have any experience in the ground-game of politics and how it is similar to the ground-game in business.
I've helped in some elections before, and I can tell you that the "marketing" part of positioning etc is pretty much set about a year before election. From then on, the people on the ground literally go door to door canvassing. They arn't really trying to covert anyone, but trying to identify where their supporters live. All this goes into a database. As the election approaches, deliveries of flyers tend to be
only to your own supporters (it's a waste bothering to leaflet those who don't support you, especially as all of this is done by volunteers on their Sunday afternoons). On election day, you "knock-up" all those who you've identified and if necessary drive them to the polling station.
It's all a
massive logistical exercise that goes on throughout the country.
It's not that different to how consumer corps will send coupons only to their targetted customers, or will advertise in the SERPs only for certain keywords and not do a scatter-gun approach.
The process is similar - mass-market an idea - then identify the people are receptive to the idea. Then do targetted reinforcement advertising (the leaftets), then finally get them to the ballot boxes. You need the marketing AND the organisational and logistical skills.
Romney failed on several counts - his mass-marketing wasn't broad enough. And his ground game wasn't as efficient and effective as Obamas. What can I say? He's an asset-stripper and his skill-set was wrong for the job.
