GSPM Blog

I've been reading David Plouffe's The Audacity to Win in which he details the decision making behind the scenes during Barack Obama's remarkable campaign.  So far, I've only read through the primary fight, but it's clear that this account is mandatory reading for anyone working in contemporary politics. I've learned more about the guts of a well managed presidential campaign than from any of the other books produced by journalists, because Plouffe writes from the viewpoint of a strategist.

Plouffe writes chronologically, month by month, describing the organization of the campaign from his hiring through the decision to run and on into Iowa, New Hampshire and super-Tuesday and on through the long slog to victory in June. As one would expect, he is laudatory, excited and upbeat.  He describes his own role matter-of-factly, but gives great praise to members of "the movement," particularly the thousands of volunteers who spent uncountable hours reaching out to voters. At times he is cautious not to offend.  For example, after describing how an endorsement by Al Sharpton might have hurt the campaign in Iowa and how the campaign tried to head him off, he writes, "But he did not come to Iowa. And throughout the rest of the campaign, I found Sharpton to be a reasonable and constructive force." (p.125)  Similarly, he describes a major decision to turn down an endorsement by John Kerry on the eve of the Iowa caucuses and then immediately notes how the endorsement a week later was a big help to the campaign.     

Strategy is, of course, situational.  Thus, the uniqueness of Barack Obama's improbable victory is a tale unlikely to be repeated.  But, beneath the specifics of the competition - organizational, financial, policy, messaging, and image - with Hillary Clinton's campaign, Plouffe offers some critical lessons for everyone interested in political strategy, whether in campaigns, advocacy, legislative or lobbying. Five points stand out for me.  

First, they adopted a clear strategy - grassroots organizing to mobilize a hoard of new voters and caucus goers - and then they had the smarts to stick to it in the face of much skepticism from the media and even their own supporters.  Plouffe describes (p. 95) a meeting with major donors from New York who had put themselves on the line to go against their own Senator and who were very alarmed by continuously poor showings in national polls.  Holding the line against this pressure, Plouffe showed remarkable confidence that they had calculated the only possible road to victory, despite the fact that it was invisible on the national level.   Later, he even took on Obama himself who wanted to channel money into advertising on the BET network to shore up support among politically engaged African Americans.   Doing so would have diverted money away from the focus on field organizing in those four early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

Second, the book is replete with examples of how carefully the campaign monitored the actions of their rivals - principally the Clinton campaign - and tried to diagnose their thinking and morale.  Three examples make the point.  When media mogul David Geffen made some disparaging remarks about the Clintons, their strategist Howard Wolfson demanded that Obama disavow the comments.  Not wanting the appearance of being cowed, the Obama team fired back hard.  "The exchange did show us that the Clinton folks had a hair trigger... Whether they were more worried about Obama's candidacy than they admitted or were dangerously thin-skinned, it was an illuminating moment.  We tucked that nugget away for future war gaming." (p. 44)  On another level of the campaign, Plouffe used his volunteers in the field to monitor the activities of their competitors.  "Almost daily I asked Jon Carson, our field director who was managing the February 5 operation, ‘Have the Clinton people shown up?'  His answer always filled me with a sense of wonder and gratitude: Not yet.'" (p. 93).  Later, when Senator Clinton confronted Obama on the tarmac of Reagan National Airport, Obama saw deep concern in her eyes and later opined, "I think she may finally realize that this could be a battle ... we're in their heads for the first time."

Gamesmanship led to a certain amount of maneuvering among the candidates.  The best example came from the way in which the Obama team tried to box in Clinton over the issue of the date of the Florida primary.  The Florida party (along with Michigan) proposed moving their primary earlier, before the window established by the Democratic National Committee.  Even though an early primary in that large state would have advantaged the Clinton campaign, surprisingly their supporters on the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to disallow the delegates so chosen.  Secretly, the Obama team contacted the state party chairs in the four states that were allowed to hold early events and convinced them to call for all candidates to pledge not to campaign in those states.  Richardson, Dodd and Biden all signed the pledge quickly.  Plouffe then called his counterpart in the Edwards campaign and persuaded him to hold off for a day and say that they were considering their options.  Media speculation and attention increased and, when both Edwards and Obama announced that they would sign, the pressure was on Clinton.  Plouffe thinks that Clinton's decision to go along with the pledge - a pledge that Clinton later broke, creating an issue over the delegate count that lingered into June - allowed Obama to move into the primaries of February 5^th with a sense of momentum that would have been destroyed by a loss in an early, authorized  Florida primary.

Metrics, metrics, metrics became the Plouffe obsession.  He continually pushed all facets of the campaign organization to derive concrete measures that could document their progress.  He was so engaged by data that he almost missed the plane leaving Iowa for New Hampshire on the night after the caucuses, because he was so focused on seeing where the caucus support had met, exceeded or fallen short of projections.  Meticulous research contributed to a data-driven effort.  For example, when Oprah agreed to campaign with Obama, the media pundits thought it would have little impact, but through their polling, the campaign understood that her appeal would mostly be to their critical target audience, citizens who did not normally participate in Democratic caucuses or primaries.  Candidly, Plouffe notes how lack of data hurt the campaign badly, blaming himself for their failure to undertake the necessary research to understand just how serious a problem Obama's minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright would become.

Finally, Plouffe illustrates how carefully modern campaigns consider their messaging.  The phrase, "Change We Can Believe In," for example, was one of dozens considered by the campaign.  They went with it because it captured the image that, as a novice and as something of an outsider, Obama could plausibly bring change to Washington.  At the same time, it confronted the skepticism that many voters felt about the prospects for real change, and subtly pointed a finger at Hillary Clinton as the ultimate insider.  Plouffe notes that the slogan carried a "character component."

For all its strengths, The Audacity to Win reflects the viewpoint of its author.  Plouffe gives single-minded attention to the organizational aspects of the campaign.  While he does mention the many policy proposals developed by the campaign and gives due recognition to the candidate's remarkable rhetorical gifts, the center of his attention is definitely on the campaign organization.  By his own telling, mired in the turnout data on the night of the Iowa caucuses, he fails to even mention Obama's remarkable victory speech which was the first time he really burst into the national consciousness.  Nevertheless, the book contributes markedly to our understanding of strategy making in modern politics.