Believer: My Forty Years in Politics (26 page)

Where Bush is hyper-partisan, ideological and unyielding, voters will be looking for the next leader to rally and unify the country around our common interests and mutual obligations as Americans . . .

Where Bush’s “Ownership Society” has turned a blind eye to the economic challenges facing many Americans in the new global economy, voters desperately want policies that will put wages, retirement security, health care and educational opportunity at the top of the national agenda.

Where Washington under Bush is a cauldron of special interest favors and inside deals, voters will demand honest, transparent government that puts the nation’s interest first.

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.

The bottom line is this:

Voters are primed to turn the page and choose a candidate who offers an inspiring, inclusive, confident and HOPEFUL vision for America in the 21st Century.

They want to believe again in themselves, their country and their future. They want to believe again in America’s exceptionalism, of which you are both a champion and a reflection.

For all these reasons, you are uniquely suited for these 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.

Obama’s lack of high-level government or executive experience was an obvious concern and an inviting target for opponents, I wrote. 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.

Substantive ideas, judgment and
gravitas
are essential. But we should not get into a white paper war with the Clintons, or get twisted into knots by the elites. 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.

Unlike experience, strength is an indispensable quality voters would demand in a president, I wrote, and neither McCain, who endured more than five years of torture in a Vietnamese prison, nor Hillary, who had run a gauntlet of her own during her years in the public eye, needed to certify theirs. Obama’s story—the son of a single mother and someone who rose from modest beginnings and youthful challenges to excel—was one reflection of his strength and character.

But the campaign itself also is a proving ground for strength . . . How you respond to the inevitable challenges you’ll face will reveal much about your strength and preparedness for the job.

I also offered Obama my assessment of his most prominent potential opponents:

Hillary Clinton is a formidable candidate, who should be considered the frontrunner for the nomination because of her strength, intellect, discipline, and, of course, access to an array of assets far in excess of any other candidate.

As a city kid, I am no golfer, but I knew Obama was, so I faked it to make a point about Hillary’s advantages.

She and her team have played this course many times before. They know every bunker, sand trap and the lay of the greens. And she has the best caddy in the business.

But for all of her advantages, she is not a healing figure . . . The more she tries to moderate her image, the more she jeopardizes herself in the nominating fight and compounds her exposure as an opportunist. And after two decades of the Bush-Clinton saga, making herself the candidate of the future will be a challenge . . .

Edwards was “not to be discounted,” I wrote, because of his strong populist appeal in Iowa and his experience as a presidential and vice-presidential candidate. Having left the Senate soon after his run in 2004, he, too, would offer himself as an “outsider.” Nonetheless, Edwards still had a gravitas problem.

In our discussions, the candidate about whom Obama was most wary was not a Democrat, but McCain. Barack had watched McCain’s spirited, insurgent “Straight Talk Express” primary challenge to Bush in 2000, during which the Arizona senator had shown significant appeal to independent voters. He was not afraid to buck party orthodoxy, most notably taking on moneyed interests through campaign finance reform measures. He had opposed the Bush tax cuts, which he argued skewed toward the rich and, later, because they were irresponsible in a time of war. The crusty, cantankerous former POW had shown political courage, and if any Republican could escape the stigma of Bush and offer a promise of change, it would be McCain. In his desire to be the nominee, however, McCain had begun to trim his sails, risking his maverick brand.

The GOP hierarchy, which almost always gets its man, seems resigned to McCain. But his nomination won’t come without a fight or a cost.

He remains anathema to many activists within the party, from the Religious Right, which is deeply suspicious of his secular politics, to the tax cut purists to K Street. He knows he will have a fight, and this has caused him to make a series of Faustian bargains with the Right. From the dalliance with Jerry Falwell to his embrace of the anti-immigration panderers and gay marriage militants . . . McCain’s Straight Talk Express has taken many awkward detours. It will be interesting to see how the irascible Senator, who prides himself on his image of courageous principle, reacts when he’s challenged on this down the line.

And at the age of 73, he also will have a problem presenting himself as the candidate of the future.

McCain is formidable, to be sure. But he is not unbeatable.

Finally, I dealt with two issues that related to Obama himself: timing and temperament.

I strongly rejected the counsel of those advising Barack to wait and get some “seasoning” in the Senate before running for the presidency. I pointed out that the most common mistake made by other hopefuls in the past was passing on opportunities—waiting too long rather than running too soon.

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.

For all the virtues and excitement of running for president, I warned,

it also is a relentless, bone-wearying, pressure-filled, degrading and often miserable gauntlet, in which you will be challenged and tested, poked and prodded. Every statement and proposal will be parsed and matched against past votes and pronouncements for inconsistencies. You will be locked in a constant game of Gotcha with a press corps, egged on by your opponents, who will see their role as challengers of the Obama Icon they helped create.

I continued:

At the risk of triggering the very reaction that concerns me, I don’t know if you are Muhammad Ali or Floyd Patterson when it comes to taking a punch.

You care far too much what is written and said about you. You don’t relish the combat when it becomes personal and nasty. When the largely irrelevant Alan Keyes attacked you, you flinched.

It had to be said. Neither Obama nor any of us knew how he would react to the intense, sometimes absurd scrutiny presidential contenders—and, even worse, their families—get. It is part of the test, and there is no way to simulate the pressures of it, or predict how any candidate, particularly a newcomer like Obama, would handle it. He needed to think about whether he was willing to commit himself to a regimen of irritation and worse.

Plouffe had been doing prodigious work assessing the challenges and logistics of such an ambitious start-up, and his managerial chops were something of a revelation to me. While he was a splendid partner and brilliant counselor, he generally deferred to me as the firm’s senior partner on strategic and management issues. So when Rouse first suggested David as the manager, I was hesitant. He was an operational wizard, I thought, but could he take command? “I just don’t know if he’s a number one guy,” I said, proposing that Rouse play the manager’s role, with David as his deputy. Yet Rouse, a career government hand still smarting from Daschle’s loss, had no interest in managing a campaign. He knew Plouffe from his stint as head of the DCCC, and thought he was right for the job. Maybe I simply hadn’t seen Plouffe in that role. I asked Del Cecato, who had worked for him at the DCCC. “Are you kidding?” he replied, stunned by the question. “Plouffe’s a brilliant manager. Best I’ve ever seen.”

Our team reconvened in my office in mid-December to review where things stood and to see if Barack had moved closer to a decision. The most memorable and significant moment of that meeting was provoked by a question Michelle asked of him. Fiercely independent and protective of the kids, she was clearly working her way through her own distinct process. She believed in him and shared his convictions, and she recognized that this might be a watershed moment in his career. Yet career advancement alone wasn’t a sufficiently good reason to turn their lives upside down.

“Barack, it kind of comes down to this. There are a lot of good, capable people running for president,” she said. “What do you think you could contribute that the others couldn’t?”

Barack responded quickly. He had plainly reflected on the same question.

“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.”

The room was quiet after he spoke. In all our ruminations, we had talked about the practical challenges that race posed to our ability to win. Yet until that moment, no one had spoken out loud about what his winning would mean. In the eyes of the world, the election of a black man named Barack Obama to the presidency would be an affirmation of America’s promise—and to those millions of American kids of whom Barack spoke, it would open up possibilities they could scarcely imagine.

Obama’s simple, eloquent point was brought home to me a short time later, when I got a call from a young man named Brad Parker, an inner-city Chicago public school teacher who had grown up with my son Michael. Brad told me about one recent day when he was teaching a section on American presidents.

“One kid raised his hand and asked, ‘Why are all these dudes white?’” Brad said. “So we had a discussion about it. And then I told them, ‘But, you know, the next president could be our own senator, Barack Obama. And he would change that.’”

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.”

Despite his compelling answer to Michelle’s question, Barack said they still had soul-searching to do. He promised to make a decision over Christmas, during his annual family vacation in Hawaii. Still, before he left, Barack asked Plouffe to manage the campaign, were it to move forward. Meanwhile, Michelle and Valerie asked me to dinner at Coco Pazzo, an Italian restaurant near my office, to discuss another and quite sensitive personnel matter.

“We have concerns about Robert,” Valerie said. “We don’t think he should be a part of the campaign.”

That floored me. There was no doubt that Gibbs had some hard bark on him. He wasn’t naturally trusting, particularly after his negative experience in Kerry’s campaign. While he was ferocious in pursuit of Barack’s interests, he was often the bearer of bad news—or the architect of it—for example, when dates were added to Barack’s schedule that tugged him away from home. Barack was undoubtedly fine with letting Gibbs take the blame for some of Michelle’s unhappiness and frustration, which might have contributed to her doubts about him.

I wondered if either Michelle or Valerie had broached the subject with Barack, who clearly valued Robert. He was an absolutely essential player. Brilliant, incisive, quick-witted, and experienced, he was as good as we could get in the spokesman’s role. More than anyone, his hidden hand in shrewd, day-to-day political calls in the Senate office had been crucial in creating the opportunity for Barack. He’d proven an indispensable presence on the road, his loyalty was beyond question, and he had forged a palpable bond with Obama. I couldn’t imagine Obama wanting it any other way.

“Look, if Barack runs, it’s going to be a war, and Robert is a warrior,” I explained. “We cannot do this without him.” Michelle and Valerie relented, and I never heard any more about it.

Over the holidays, Susan and I had a chance to talk about the prospect of Barack’s candidacy. She was bullish, both for him and for me. Susan had great appreciation for Hillary, who had been the patron saint of CURE and a source of encouragement when Susan was battling cancer. Still, like many, Susan was virulently antiwar, disgusted by the antics in Washington, and excited by the prospect of Barack as president. I had missed two opportunities to work on presidential campaigns in the ’90s because of our family circumstances—she discounted the Edwards experience, having opposed my involvement in that campaign from the beginning—but now, with our kids grown and Lauren’s epilepsy stabilized, she felt that this was my time, and perhaps my final chance.

“I always thought if you could have helped Gore, you could have made a difference,” she said, ascribing powers to me as only a loving wife could. “It sounds stupid, but I thought that if I didn’t have cancer, and you could have helped him in that election, he would have won, and maybe there wouldn’t have been an Iraq War. Barack will make a big difference and you know you can make a big difference for
him
.”