Novelty Search in Presidential Politics

In this New York Times article about Barack Obama's 50-state strategy for winning the presidency, I came across this:

For Obama’s political advisers, expanding the electoral map is not about making a philosophical statement; it is simply a strategic imperative. Presidential campaigns, after all, are about getting to 270 — the minimum number of electoral votes needed to win. In relying on the same 20 or so winnable states over the past few elections, Democratic nominees have given themselves almost no margin for error. By contrast, Obama’s campaign, in addition to fighting for the usual complement of about a dozen swing states, has shifted considerable resources into a group of states — the list has, at one time or another, included Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Georgia — that haven’t been strongly contested for at least three elections, if not longer. (Alaska was on the list, too, until McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.) The idea here is that the more states you put in play, the more permutations there are that lead to victory.

Sounds like the man who will likely win the presidency has some solid understanding of novelty search and the value of open-ended approaches to problem-solving.

The article continues with this quote from David Axelrod, Obama’s lead strategist:

If you expand the map, you improve your chances.

A simple idea, but not easy, as we like to say about this cognitive accuracy stuff. And not at all common, and thus even more impressive and welcome.

I must say I feel a great deal of optimism about the possibility of a president who thinks like this and has people like this around him.