Löfven in the US looking to learn from Obama

Sweden's Social Democrat head Stefan Löfven is in Chicago to meet with politicians, scientists, and businessmen while learning from President Obama’s election campaign how to win over the Swedish voters in good time for the election in 2014.

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“If you’ve won a presidential campaign in the US you have worked bloody hard and got some rather important things right. It could be very useful to understand the main ingredients in their thinking,” Löfven told daily Expressen.

While in the US, Löfven, together with the party’s international secretary Ann Linde, advisor Oscar Stenström, and MP Urban Ahlin, will also be meeting with Swedish businessmen and talk of Swedish-American trade relations together with the Swedish Trade Council (Exportrådet).

In Washington DC Löfven will be visiting the National Democratic Institute as well as the think tank Center for American Progress where he will be hosting a debate on ”New Global Deal Between Capital and Labour”.

Löfven will also be discussing the situation in Syria, the Middle East and Afghanistan at Pentagon in the US capital and at the State Department and with representatives of the National Security Council in the White House.

He will be visiting the World Bank Group as well as the head economist for the IMF Olivier Blanchard and meet with Democrats from the Senate and the US congress.

But the US stay kicked off with a visit to Obama’s election campaign headquarters where Löfven is hoping to pick up some tips for the Swedish election in 2014.

“The Democrats are very thorough in their planning, they involve very many in their campaign all the way out to the grass root level. We can certainly learn how to map and plan this work,” Löfven said to Expressen after meeting with one of Obama’s campaign managers Mitch Stewart.

Löfven has already made several other study visits, having recently been both to Berlin and London to find out more about the key to winning elections, according to the paper.

“There’s something about the American election campaign that inspires me a great deal. It’s the drive they have. They speak about the ‘snowflake’ effect. They have representatives in each state, responsible for having contact people in smaller communities. And finally there’ll be someone in each neighbourhood working on the campaign. That’s pretty cool,” said Löfven to the paper.

TT/Rebecca Martin
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