Republican Strategist Castellanos Calls Obama Win

Republican media consultant and strategist Alex Castellanos predicted a victory for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, in a talk at the Institute of Politics yesterday afternoon.

“This is the strangest election that I’ve ever seen,” Castellanos said, citing the unprecedented media scrutiny and sharp turns that have marked both the primary and general elections.

Castellanos, an émigré from Cuba and an IOP Fellow this semester, praised the bottom-up organization of the Obama campaign and its effectiveness in mobilizing support. He dubbed Obama’s grassroots call for change a “secular religion.”

But the greatest factor in Obama’s favor, Castellanos said, is the financial crisis that has swept Wall Street over the past few weeks.

While the Republican National Convention and the nomination of Sarah Palin moved the McCain campaign in a more “populist” direction, the financial crisis shortened the distance between McCain and the Republican establishment.

“Republicans are going to be charged for this happening on their watch,” Castellanos said.

Castellanos said that, in recent years, he has observed an increasingly “incestuous” relationship between journalists and politicians. The two groups have grown “co-dependent” due to the public’s constant demand for information, he added.

“People are more informed than ever,” Castellanos said. “The role of gatekeeper of information has changed.”

Castellanos emphasized the important role that youth would play in changing the face of politics, noting that “government is going to look a lot more like Facebook and eBay in the future.”

“Undergrads are going to build the post-industrial politics,” he said in an interview after the event, adding that the new politics would be “ground-up” and “based on communication.”

Castellanos has served as a media consultant for seven presidential candidates. After advising the Bush campaign in 2004, Castellanos was the chief strategist for the presidential campaign of former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney. He currently serves on the John McCain for President Ad Council.

Carrie Sheffield, a first-year public policy student at the Harvard Kennedy School, said that she was impressed by Castellano’s broad range of knowledge and his frank assessment of the heated presidential race.

“I was interested in his insider perspective and surprised that he spoke so favorably about Obama,” Sheffield said.