Tories recruit Obama strategist

By Kiran Stacey and Jim Pickard

The strategist who masterminded Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential election victory has joined the Conservative party in what even Labour insiders are calling a “coup” for David Cameron.

Jim Messina, Mr Obama’s campaign manager in the race for the White House, was recruited by three senior Conservatives from under the nose of Labour, which had earlier considered hiring him, the Financial Times has learnt.

The move is intended to sharpen the Tories’ campaign tactics in the run-up to the 2015 general election.

Mr Messina pioneered the use of “micro-targeting” whereby the Democrats split the electorate into segments that were then targeted through digital media. The technique is seen as more sophisticated than the old-style focus on broad demographics such as “Mondeo man”.

He has since set up Organising for Action, a group dedicated to campaigning for Mr Obama’s second-term legislation. He will do all his work for the Conservatives from the US.

The Tories are already copying some of Mr Obama’s tactics, seeing parallels with their own predicament in the way the US president fought and won against a difficult economic backdrop.

They have copied one catchphrase of the Obama campaign, warning voters not to “hand back the keys to the people who crashed the car”, blaming their predecessors for economic problems.

His appointment, revealed by the BBC’s Newsnight programme, has startled Labour MPs and officials, who had looked into hiring advisers from the Obama camp. In a sign of the parties’ varying financial fortunes, Labour had not considered any of their targets – including Mr Messina – affordable.

“The Tories have got the money . . . It is a coup for David Cameron in all honesty,” said one senior Labour figure.

Other admired senior advisers from the Obama camp now offering advice elsewhere include Joel Benenson and David Axelrod. Mr Axelrod is thought to have received hundreds of thousands of dollars for his work with Mario Monti, the Italian technocrat. However, Mr Monti went on to fare terribly in the country’s elections earlier this year. “It shows you that the magic of political strategists can be exaggerated,” said the Labour aide.

Labour is still waiting to decide on a replacement for Tom Watson, its former elections chief who stepped down during the Unite selections furore earlier in the summer. Candidates are understood to include Douglas Alexander, shadow foreign secretary, and Michael Dugher, shadow Cabinet Office minister. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013.