A good post-mortem on the soon-to-be-infamous Project ORCA.

Short version: it was designed to help Romney’s GOTV.  It did not work, in much the same way that the sun is warm.  That first link will give the gory details; this second one will give you more; and there’s going to be more coming.  I anticipate a good deal of useful under-the-hood analysis to come out of this; which should … no.  Which will help us do better next time.

For my own part – and I plan to be repeating what I’m about to write to GOP party officials in the very near future – I have a very basic attitude.  In 2012 the RNC had just come off of a successful rebuilding and won a series of extremely tricky elections against well-funded and dedicated opponents.  The next Presidential campaign that wants to override that kind of institutional strength had better have the track record to justify it.