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Rather than being greeted as “liberators,” as Vice President Dick Cheney had forecast, we were mired in the sectarian warfare of which Obama had warned.
I had passed on two previous presidential campaigns, and was champing at the bit to be involved in this one.
I. I was heartened by Edwards’s professed sense of advocacy, and felt a bond with both of them. Though I hadn’t lost a child, I knew what it was like to anguish over one.
Susan, an expert on what campaigns do to families, was incredulous. “And now they’re going to run for president and basically orphan them for the next couple of years? Dave, I don’t think you should do this race. There’s something wrong with this picture.”
Dean had shocked the political world, vastly outraising his opponents, largely through the collection of small donations online.
I began to have less say in strategic decisions and even less control over the campaign’s message, until ultimately the campaign ads that ran those final weeks in Iowa were not mine.
“I feel like we need to add to our media team,” Edwards said. “Harrison recommended a guy he knows who he thinks could help. You’re still our guy, but we just want to bring another approach to the table.”
“The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
“Barack has a beautiful mind,”
For Barack, the impact of a changing economy on everyday people had been an animating concern since his days as a community organizer.
Obama’s talent was beyond dispute, but his luck was beyond belief.
“I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters,” he said. “I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.”
needed; the student who “has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college.”
“The people I meet—in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks—they don’t expect government to solve all their problems,” Obama said. “They know they have to work hard to get ahead, and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. Go into any inner-city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn; they know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the
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Our challenge is to maintain that tone, protect that special character and sincerity and always bear in mind that the brain dead politics of Washington is as much our target as Jack Ryan.
This was the essence of Obama’s appeal. The core of his “brand.” The entire nation had seen and responded to it in Boston. The next test would be how it, and he, would hold up in Washington.
Jon Favreau was the talented young Kerry speechwriter who bore the bad news in Boston when Team Kerry swiped Barack’s favorite speech line; Favreau joined the staff as chief speechwriter. Obama was assembling a team of old pros and young talent that could carry him far.
America in which race continues to play a part; that class continues to play a part; that people are not availing themselves of the same opportunities, of the same schools, of the same jobs,” he told Stephanopoulos. “And because they’re not, when disaster strikes, it tears the curtain away from these festering problems . . . and black and white, all of us should be concerned to make sure that’s not the kind of America that’s reflected on our television screens.”
“I spent time with Roberts, and came away convinced that he is qualified in every way,” Barack said to us. “He’s obviously bright. He knows his stuff. But I also have this nagging feeling, based on his opinions, that anytime there’s a contest between the powerful and the powerless, he’ll find a way to make sure the powerful win. That’s how he’ll interpret the law. And that’s not my vision of how the courts should work, and particularly not the Supreme Court.”
“I just had the strangest meeting with Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer,” he said. “I didn’t know why they were calling me over there. Turns out they wanted to tell me I should run for president.”
I was so certain that Obama would not run for president in 2008 that I had begun to plan a hiatus from campaigns.
“You know, having witnessed this trip, I am beginning to believe this guy is ready to be president,” Gibbs told me when they returned. “The reaction he got over there . . . the way he inspired people . . . it was pretty remarkable.”
For an Obama candidacy, we reasoned that Iowa stood as the critical threshold. It was the same test Paul Simon had faced twenty years earlier.
He has appreciation for irony and a firm grasp on the fact that some things remain beyond our control. It’s a quality that contributes to his outward calm, even amid utter chaos.
Entering the midterm election year as the party’s most sought-after surrogate, Barack now emerged from it as its most intriguing prospect.
as health care, climate change, and frayed alliances in the world. The special interests were strong and getting stronger, and the middle class was under siege. Against this, we were hamstrung by small, divisive politics that made solving big problems virtually impossible. It was a critical moment in the nation’s history. Could he bring something different, something more useful than just fresh and moving rhetoric, to the daunting challenges facing America?
young campaign warriors who are the backbone of such efforts.
a phenomenon I hadn’t witnessed since the Bobby Kennedy campaigns of my youth. Also, as in the ’60s, it was the young who were responding most enthusiastically.
With few exceptions, the history of presidential politics shows that public opinion and attitudes about who should next occupy the Oval Office are largely shaped by the perceptions of the retiring incumbent. And rarely do voters look for a replica. Instead, they generally choose a course correction, selecting a candidate who will address the deficiencies of the outgoing President . . . Now we are entering a campaign that will be defined by vivid perceptions of Bush, his record and style of leadership. And that is our opportunity. Where Bush is hyper-partisan, ideological and unyielding, voters
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Where Bush and the Blame Government First crowd have bungled every major challenge since 9/11 while running up massive deficits, voters are asking for smart, frugal and efficient government.
Where Bush’s bull-headed policies have created a foreign policy disaster in Iraq and weakened our overall defenses, voters will be asking for a new American foreign policy that is both strong and wise, emphasizing our ideals as well as our might and the multilateralism the neo-cons scorn.
HOPEFUL vision for America in the 21st Century.
believe again
They want to believe again in America’s exceptionalism, of which you are both a c...
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times. No one among the potential candidates within our party is as well positioned to rekindle our lost idealism as Americans and pick up the mantle of change. No one better represents a new generation of leadership, more focused on practical solutions to today’s challenges than old dogmas of the left and right.
In a section entitled “The Experience Trap,” I argued that if ever there were an election in which Americans would value energetic, new leadership over years of Washington experience, 2008 would be it. What seemed to be Obama’s biggest vulnerability could prove to be an asset.
The insiders will never accept it, but this is a splendid time to be an outsider. That’s one of the principal reasons to run now.
In his desire to be the nominee, however, McCain had begun to trim his sails, risking his maverick brand.
You will never be hotter than you are right now. And with the longevity favored by the Washington establishment comes all the baggage. You could wind up calcified in the Senate, with a voting record that hangs from your neck like the anchor from the Lusitania.
“There are a lot of ways to answer that. But here’s one thing I know for sure: the day I raise my hand to take that oath of office as president of the United States,” he said, lifting his right hand, “the world will look at us differently, and millions of kids—black kids, Hispanic kids—will look at themselves differently.”
Brad said the reaction of these mostly poor, minority kids from the West Side of Chicago was kinetic. “Their eyes were like saucers, they were so excited. The idea that a person of color could be president—they couldn’t believe it.”
Most in the room, including Barack, were too young to remember Bobby Kennedy’s iconoclastic campaign of 1968.
Change always begins from the bottom up.
“‘Fact number one: We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college,’ he intones. ‘Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!’ There is thumping applause; Wright has a cadence and power that make Obama sound like John Kerry.
“I think that, if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and we’ve exhausted all other options, we should take him out before he plans to kill another 3,000 Americans.
When Barack was asked about the gas tax idea, however, he gave a different answer. He had voted for such a policy as a state legislator, and it had turned out to be a scam. The savings rarely reached consumers because they were quickly gobbled up by the oil industry. Such bogus palliatives failed to address the true causes of fuel price spikes, like manipulation of the oil markets and the absence of a comprehensive national energy policy, Barack said.
Favs and I had worked on a speech that shifted the focus to the general election and John McCain, in the hope of sending a strong signal that the primary was effectively over.
Sixteen months have passed since we first stood together on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. Thousands of miles have been traveled. Millions of voices have been heard. And because of what you said—because you decided that change must come to Washington; because you believed that this year must be different than all the rest; because you chose to listen not to your doubts or your fears but to your greatest hopes and highest aspirations, tonight we mark the end of one historic journey with the beginning of another—a journey that will bring a new and better day to
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eight years of Bush’s unilateralism.
(terrorism, human rights, poverty, and climate change)
