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A race for the agesDavid Plouffe. The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story andLessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory. New York: Viking,2009.

John Heileman and Mark Halperin. Game Change:Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Raceof a Lifetime. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.

Review by Christopher P. Manfredi

N o matter the candidates, the2008 US presidential cam-paign was going to be one of

the most fascinating in a very longtime. It was the first since 1952 thatdid not feature an incumbent presi-dent or vice-president, and like the1968 campaign it took place againstthe background of an unpopular war.But the cast of characters that walkedacross the stage during the campaignmade it an even more fascinating racethan it was already meant to be. Itincluded the first woman ever to havea realistic chance to become a majorparty nominee, the first African-American to secure a major party pres-idential nomination, a war heroviewed suspiciously by significant ele-ments in his own party and anunknown woman from Alaska who, at44, gave birth to her fifth child andlearned that she would soon become agrandmother. Little wonder, then, thatthe 2008 campaign generated anextraordinary range of books.

Two of the best of these books areThe Audacity to Win and Game Change.The former is by an insider, DavidPlouffe, who served as Barack Obama’scampaign manager in both theDemocratic primaries and the generalelection. The second is by two journal-ists who followed the campaigns close-ly and had the opportunity to

interview scores of people who lived itin real time. Together, the books satis-fy any political junkie’s need to knowwhat happened inside the campaignsand provide an insightful analysis of21st-century political campaigning.Both are well written and tell com-pelling stories.

The story told in The Audacity toWin begins with a strategy session inOctober 2006 involving Plouffe, hisbusiness partner David Axelrod andBarack Obama to figure out an effec-tive way to walk back from Obama’sunambiguous pledge nine months ear-lier that he would not be a candidatefor president in 2008. Obama suggest-ed a radical approach: telling the truth— that the situation had changed, andthat a possibility he had ruled out inJanuary was now something he waswilling to consider. Thus began athree-month period of reflection andconsultation that ended with the pub-lic announcement on a bitterly coldmorning in Springfield, Illinois, thathe would seek the Democratic nomi-nation for president.

Much of the book documents howPlouffe and others built the campaignorganization and developed its strate-gy to secure the nomination. Therewere primary highs — victory in Iowa— and lows — defeat in NewHampshire. There were unexpected

challenges, caused most notably by theoratorical explosions of the ReverendJeremiah Wright. There were chal-lenges converted to opportunities,such as Obama’s highly praised speechon race given in response to Wright’sinterventions in the campaign. Therewere triumphs — the successfulEuropean tour in the summer beforethe Democratic convention in Denver— and missteps — Obama’s “bitterlyclinging to guns and religion” remarkduring the Pennsylvania primary.

For an insider, Plouffe’s account ofthe primary campaign is remarkably self-aware and critical. To be sure, he doesnot hesitate to point out how theObama campaign outmanœuvered theClinton campaign at almost every criti-cal point. One of the key differences, forexample, was how the two campaignsapproached caucus versus primarystates. The Clinton campaign seemedincapable of organizing for caucuses,while the Obama team had sufficienttactical flexibility to adjust itself to differ-ent modes for selecting delegates. Plouffeis unable to provide a good explanationfor the Clinton campaign’s clumsiness inthis respect, but one might speculatethat Clinton’s confidence that she wouldwin the Democratic nomination causedher to build an organization orientedstrategically and tactically to fighting thegeneral election. In any event, by the

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final third of the primary season theClinton campaign had abandoned anynotion of winning caucus states.

Yet, despite its strategic and tacticalsuperiority, Plouffe is quite candid aboutthe shortcomings of the Obama primarycampaign. A press conference intendedto deflect accusations of financial mis-conduct with a Chicago developer was a“disaster,” and Obama prepared poorly

and performed even worse in a debateprior to the Pennsylvania primary. Mostfamously for Canadian readers, a cam-paign adviser spoke imprudently toCanadian consular officials to clarifyObama’s position on NAFTA. The resultwas a leaked memo that made Obama’scampaign rhetoric on trade seem disin-genuous.

P louffe’s relatively candid assess-ment of the primary campaign is

unfortunately replaced by a self-con-gratulatory analysis of the general elec-tion. In this part of the story, thealmost flawless Obama team routs theincompetent and hapless Republicansled by John McCain. From fundraisingto running mate selection to debateperformance, Plouffe heaps ridicule onhis opponents. He does concede a cou-ple of errors by the Obama team in thegeneral election: withdrawing fromlarge, energy-filled rallies duringAugust and allowing Obama to offer a“my resumé is bigger than hers” cri-tique of Sarah Palin, which misfired byhighlighting his own experientialshortcomings. Yet, despite a climatethat greatly disadvantaged the incum-bent party, the race between Obamaand McCain was closer for longer thanit should have been.

One of the questions that Plouffenever really addresses in his book is:Why not Hillary? Why did a signifi-cant number of Democratic opera-

tives actively seek an alternative tothe woman who was the presumptivenominee going into primary season?The answer to these questions can befound in Game Change. In essence,Hillary Clinton had two major weak-nesses within her own party: her sup-port for the Iraq war and BillClinton’s lack of self-discipline. By2006 many Democratic activists sim-

ply could not accept her vote infavour of going to war. Other activistsworried about the practical electoralconsequences that might ensue ifsome personal misconduct by herhusband emerged during the generalelection. Hillary Clinton’s supportwithin the party turned out to bedeep but insufficiently broad.

Like all good stories, Game Changehas villains. Principal among them,ironically, are the Clintons. Neither onecomes across as a sympathetic charac-ter. Bill Clinton’s performance duringthe South Carolina primary, in whichhe first let his own deeply held privateand personal grievances against theObama campaign overshadow Hillary’smessage and then seemingly belittledObama by comparing his SouthCarolina victory to Jesse Jackson’s suc-cess there in 1984 and 1988, was one ofthe lowest points of his wife’s cam-paign. Hillary’s inability to manage hercampaign staff effectively paralyzed hercampaign at times and made it difficultto frame a consistent message aboutwhy, other than entitlement, sheshould become the party’s nominee.

John and Elizabeth Edwards — thelatter surprisingly — are also villains inthe Heileman-Halperin story. They werethe narcissistic candidate whose self-destructive behaviour led his own staffto contemplate blowing up his cam-paign, and the spouse whose positivepublic image masked private behaviour

that Heileman and Halperin describe as“abusive, intrusive, paranoid [and] con-descending.” Edwards’ narcissismfuelled his relationship with RielleHunter, and his abuse of “longtimeaide” (actually gofer) Andrew Young toconceal his paternity of Hunter’s child isone of the darker moments in the storyof the campaign. Perhaps Edwards’ nar-cissism was due to his wife’s derisive atti-

tude toward him. In anyevent, these two Democraticpower couples — the Clin-tons and the Edwards —come across as thoroughlyunlikeable.

Although about two-thirds of Game Change is

devoted to the Democratic primaries,the book also provides importantinsights into the Republican primariesand the general election. JohnMcCain’s extraordinarily wild ridefrom front-runner to dead man walk-ing to nominee tells us much aboutMcCain’s resilience and the inherentweakness of the Republican field. RudyGiuliani, Mitt Romney and MickHuckabee were all deeply flawed pre-tenders to the nomination who lackedany capacity to exploit McCain’s earlyprimary meltdown. Huckabee had lit-tle money and limited appeal;Giuliani’s personal life was problemat-ic and his position on social issuesanathema to many conservatives;Romney kept stumbling into badheadlines and became defined as a“flip-flopper.” For Republicans con-templating 2012 it doesn’t appear thatthe field has become any deeper.

Of course, perhaps the most inter-esting parts of Game Change involve theselection and performance of SarahPalin as the nominee for vice-president.According to Heileman and Halperin,the McCain campaign had alwaysplanned to “shock the world” with itsvice-presidential pick. For a very longtime, Joe Lieberman looked to be thename that would appear alongsideMcCain’s on the ticket. But his pro-choice views eventually disqualifiedhim, and McCain reached out to SarahPalin, a name that was far from the cen-

As this cast of characters suggests, one lesson of these books isthat, despite talk of new campaign technologies, the core ofpolitics remains people. Politics is labour intensive, and thepersonalities of its leading figures and their ability to buildpersonal relationships and judge talent are critically important.

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tre of the radar. She came to the cam-paign with an approval rating of 80 per-cent as governor of Alaska, but thecampaign spent less than a week vet-ting her as a potential running mate.More importantly, when she was thrustinto the middle of a presidential cam-paign with no experience at the nation-al level, the McCain camp did not reallyhave an opportunity to prep her for theintense scrutiny and rigorous scheduleshe was about to endure.

I n the beginning the choice appearedinspired. Palin energized the base and

threw the Obama campaign off balance.Her speech to the Republican conven-tion was a triumph: she ad-libbed herhockey moms as pit bulls with lipstickline, and she overcame a malfunction-ing teleprompter that left parts of herspeech off the screen. McCain wasecstatic, and Palin became the main sto-ryline from the convention. But herweaknesses were about to be revealed inher infamous Katie Couric interview,which seems to have sent her intosomething like a catatonic depressionfrom time to time during the remainderof the campaign. Although she recov-ered slightly during the vice-presidentialdebate with Joe Biden, the bloom wasoff the rose, especially among influen-tial conservative opinion leaders.

As this cast of characters suggests,one lesson of these books is that,despite talk of new campaign tech-nologies, the core of politics remainspeople. Politics is labour intensive, andthe personalities of its leading figuresand their ability to build personal rela-tionships and judge talent are critical-ly important. As related in these twobooks, fundamental character flaws inits major players — with one notableexception — deeply affected how the2008 presidential campaign unfolded.The notable exception, of course, isBarack Obama. Although both booksacknowledge that Obama made mis-takes and underperformed at times, hisbasic character is depicted as beingremarkably flawless. His only viceappears to be an inability to give upsmoking, but otherwise the portrait

seems almost too good to be true. Onecan understand David Plouffe’s reluc-tance to expose fundamental flaws,but the absence of critical distancefrom Obama in the journalisticaccount is a weakness. One wonderswhether fear of losing access to a sit-ting president is a factor here.

These books are enjoyable readsthat provide surprising insights intohigh-profile individuals and a surpris-ing campaign. They are very muchworth the time spent on them.

Christopher M. Manfredi is dean of theFaculty of Arts at McGill University.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as candidates for the Democratic nomination in 2008. Itwas a race for the ages, well chronicled in Game Change and The Audacity to Win.

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