The audacity to win: the inside story and lessons of Barack Obama's historic victory by David Plouffe

Author:David Plouffe
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Political campaigns, USA, Regional History, Barack, 21st Century, Political Science, U.S. Presidential Elections, Political leaders & leadership, General, c 2000 to c 2010, Government, Executive Branch, Presidents - United States - Election - 2008, 21st century history: from c 2000 -, Obama, Current Events, International Relations, United States - 21st Century, Elections, David, United States, Elections & referenda, Political Process - Elections, History, History of the Americas, Political Process, Presidents, Plouffe, Presidents & Heads of State, Political campaigns - United States, Election, Biography & Autobiography, Politics, 2008, Government - Executive Branch
ISBN: 9780670021338
Publisher: Viking
Published: 2009-11-15T19:12:04.708000+00:00

9

Agony. Ecstasy.

Had the Clinton campaign approached the entire primary as they did Wyoming, it probably would not have changed the ultimate outcome. But it might have.

It was clear to both campaigns that Obama would win the Wyoming caucuses. We had been organizing for months and built up a solid lead. In a change from their approach to prior caucuses, however, the new Clinton regime decided to compete in Wyoming in an effort to hold down our delegate yields. They placed staff—albeit late—and both Hillary and Bill campaigned there in the closing days with other surrogates. It paid off for them in delegates.

We still won by a big margin, 61-38. But if the Clintons had not made that late effort, we almost assuredly would have gotten over 62 percent, which would have grown the delegate spread from 7-5 to 8-4 in our favor. Whether the Clinton campaign fully appreciated this lesson, I don’t know. “It’s a good thing they wised up so late in the process,” I told Jon Carson that afternoon. “Super Tuesday could have been a different ball game entirely.”

We also won Mississippi, as expected, netting a total of nine delegates in the two contests and erasing Clinton’s gains from March 4. That’s all it took.

There were now just 611 pledged delegates left to be allocated in the remaining contests, and our lead was just over 160. It was impossible—barring cataclysmic collapse—for Clinton to get within 100 pledged delegates of us. She had zero chance. Too little real estate left on the board.

We fixated on 100 as the magic number based on conversations with undeclared and undecided superdelegates. If our pledged-delegate lead never slipped below 100, there was virtually no chance that the supers would do anything but break en masse to us and deliver the nomination officially.

Meanwhile, we remained in a frustrating limbo. Obama’s eventual nomination was all but assured, but we had to play out the remaining contests. McCain was already gallivanting around the country, running for president as the Republican nominee. Our race dragged on and on and on, with Clinton grasping on to faint hope that we would self-destruct in some way that would cause the supers to determine Obama was not electable, voters be damned.

That hope grew stronger when the Reverend Jeremiah Wright burst back onto the scene as we headed into the seven-week death march toward Pennsylvania, which voted on April 22. Those who missed him the first time around with his quotable zingers in Rolling Stone surely got a full dose of him now.

Wright was Obama’s longtime pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ. He married Michelle and Barack, and baptized the adult Obama and his children. In Obama’s early years at Trinity, the two men were quite close.

After their girls were born, the Obamas attended Trinity less frequently. Barack was traveling a lot, further cutting down his attendance, and his relationship with Wright was not as close as it had been. But Trinity was the Obamas’ faith home, and Wright was the flamboyant and forceful leader of the congregation and parish.

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