It is unprecedented that a candidate with such a strong position as Hillary Clinton — strong financially, politically, and organizationally — should be defeated for the Democratic nomination by a relatively inexperienced unknown like Barack Obama.

I want to offer you a word of warning: Mr. Obama’s success is a symptom of a cultural change that is likely to sweep over you, Mr. McCain if you rely on the old-guard Republican power base to win this election.

I am sending you the book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. A “groundswell” is “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other instead of from companies” … or campaigns.

Page 54 has a telling graph (Figure 3-8). This graph compares the online social behavior of citizens who vote or lean Democrat and citizens who vote or lean Republican against the national average. The authors summarize the results succinctly on page 55:

“As for Republicans, their participation tend to run about 20 percent below average.”

On the other hand, Barack Obama’s campaign has connected with the 27 percent of his base that join social networks.

“…the message for Democrats is that their base is about 10 percent more likely to participate in any element of the groundswell.”

– Page 55

One reason that fewer Republicans participate in groundswell activities is that they are older as a group than Democrats. This has served Republican candidates well in the past as the older, more affluent base has out-contributed the Democratic base in almost every state and national election. Republicans have always been able to rely on “ready money.”

Our culture is shifting, however, and Obama has proven that he is a match for the emerging groundswell culture. You must avoid two assumptions that will sink your campaign for President.

Assumption 1: The Republican base doesn’t participate in groundswell activities, so we should not invest in social technologies.

In their book, Li and Bernoff don’t show us the rate of change in groundswell activity. The truth is that your base is very quickly being pushed into participation by the emerging culture through a variety of technologies. I imagine that every member of your campaign team and staff carry Blackberries. This is the front-line of groundswell technologies for the Boomer generation.

“You cannot ignore this trend. you cannot sit this one out. … The groundswell trend is unstoppable, and your (voters) are there.”

– Page 75

Assumption 2: You blog, you have a Web site, therefore you are participating.

If you think you can add some online tools to a traditional campaign strategy, you are fooling yourself. You cannot present a one-way message through your blog and Web site and rely on Polls to tell you what is going on.

“Market Research (read Polling) is very good at finding answers to questions. It’s not so effective at generating insights.”

– Page 79

Li and Bernoff dedicate a entire chapter to listening to the groundswell. They call it “perhaps the most essential neglected skill in business.”

This is an area that even Barack Obama may be weak. Your community of voters, potential voters and even detractors offer you the ability to understand the ebb and flow of opinion within the electorate. This applies to the Republican and undecided groundswell base and also applies to your rapidly changing traditional Republican base.

Don’t think that a few town hall meetings constitutes “listening.” It is a function that the entire campaign must participate in.

Most importantly for you is this recommendation from Li and Bernoff:

Choose a senior person to interpret the information and integrate it with other sources (like polls).

–Page 96

If you participate in such a strategy, you can avoid what the authors call the “no-more-being-stupid factor.” These are the policies and quirks that top executives in the campaign hold in place because of their biases.

To beat Obama, you’re going to have to shift quickly. Embrace the Groundswell. Read Groundswell. The more your campaign looks like Hillary Clinton’s the more likely you are to lose the election.

Good campaigning.