The fact is it doesn't matter how good the engineers are, if they are mismanaged then you will not get good results. The main thing that Silicon Valley has really figured out is the necessity of letting engineers into the board room so to speak. You can't have a bunch of big-shot executives trying to dictate what to do from on high because the technical and operational challenges are just as significant as the political and strategic challenges. If the engineers are outsourced, or don't have autonomy, or aren't given a seat at the table for high-level decisions, then it will be impossible for them to deliver anything as groundbreaking as what the Obama campaign delivered.
What is conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley has been slow to make its way into the political sphere, but I think the cat's out of the bag now, and I'm sure you'll see a lot less hubris and a much more solid effort from the GOP in 2016.