In a speech described as "boastful and at times revealing," Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman revealed the "unusual methods" that Republicans used to get out the vote, the New York Times reports.

Specifically, Mehlman said the campaign "had moved away from traditional operations, adopting the tactics of corporate America to identify potential Bush supporters." Instead of "dispatching troops to knock on doors in neighborhoods known to be heavily Republican... the Bush campaign studied consumer habits in trying to predict whom people would vote for in a presidential election."

Said Mehlman: "We acquired a lot of consumer data... Based on that, we were able to develop an exact kind of consumer model that corporate America does every day to predict how people vote - not based on where they live but how they live."

The Wall Street Journal focuses on the GOP strategy in Ohio and finds Bush won "thanks to a pitch on morals that went beyond evangelicals to Roman Catholics, a strong effort to turn out rural voters and a last-minute tax break for farmers, small businesses and families."

PermaLink posted by DemiOrator @ 6:22 PM