How Obama Is Using the Science of Change

It's more than a campaign slogan. Inside the White House's plan to employ behavioral economics to promote its agenda — and fundamentally alter the way Americans live

Scott Tufankjian / Polaris

Correction Appended: April 2, 2009

Two weeks before Election Day, Barack Obama's campaign was mobilizing millions of supporters; it was a bit late to start rewriting get-out-the-vote (GOTV) scripts. "BUT, BUT, BUT," deputy field director Mike Moffo wrote to Obama's GOTV operatives nationwide, "What if I told you a world-famous team of genius scientists, psychologists and economists wrote down the best techniques for GOTV scripting?!?! Would you be interested in at least taking a look? Of course you would!!"

Moffo then passed along guidelines and a sample script from the Consortium of Behavioral Scientists, a secret advisory group of 29 of the...

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