CA: What Meg Whitman Learned from Mike Bloomberg

Ken McLaughlin writes in The San Jose Mercury News:

"One of the things Whitman learned from Bloomberg is that you spend whatever it takes to hire the best political consultants you can by making them offers they can't refuse," said Doug Muzzio, a professor of public policy at Baruch College, part of the City University of New York. "You then spend freely on sophisticated focus groups, polls and databases. Then you just keep spending and spending until you've got the election" clinched.

Another similar tactic: Selling voters on the notion that "I'm so rich that no one can buy me." Like Bloomberg, Whitman started advertising extremely early, building to a crescendo as the primary election approached.

Whitman also adopted Bloomberg's tactic of "microtargeting" voters. Eight years before Whitman's campaign began, Team Bloomberg perfected the art of using phone surveys and overlapping marketing and political databases to fill mailboxes with messages tailored to a voter's ethnicity, income level and political leanings.

"They knew you were making $50,000 a year, had a 401(k), drove a Prius and shopped at Bed Bath & Beyond," Muzzio said.