Part 3 (1/2)
In Chicago, Jarrett threw Obama a book party at the home of her parents. It was pouring rain, and despite a tent in the backyard and umbrella-toting underlings, many of the attendees got soaked, their shoes ruined by the mud. Jarrett introduced Obama and spoke about Audacity's Audacity's final chapter, in which he wrote about the stress that the demands of his career put on his marriage, the disruptions to his family life. As Jarrett went on, talking about the sacrifices his wife and girls were making, she saw that Obama was crying-to the point where he couldn't manage to speak when it came his turn. Mich.e.l.le walked over, put her arm around him, and began to cry as well. final chapter, in which he wrote about the stress that the demands of his career put on his marriage, the disruptions to his family life. As Jarrett went on, talking about the sacrifices his wife and girls were making, she saw that Obama was crying-to the point where he couldn't manage to speak when it came his turn. Mich.e.l.le walked over, put her arm around him, and began to cry as well.
Even Obama's closest friends had never seen him choke up in public before. He's not emoting about the past He's not emoting about the past, Jarrett thought. He's emoting about the future. About the fact that the sacrifices he's imposed on his family are only just beginning. He's emoting about the future. About the fact that the sacrifices he's imposed on his family are only just beginning.
On October 22, Obama returned to Tim Russert's set for another appearance on Meet the Press. Meet the Press. The day before, he'd ridden down from Philadelphia in a limousine with Axelrod and Gibbs. Axelrod warned Obama that Russert would surely revisit his unequivocal reaffirmation from earlier that year that he would ”absolutely” not be on the national ticket in 2008. It took no great genius to see the question coming: Obama's face was on the cover of that week's The day before, he'd ridden down from Philadelphia in a limousine with Axelrod and Gibbs. Axelrod warned Obama that Russert would surely revisit his unequivocal reaffirmation from earlier that year that he would ”absolutely” not be on the national ticket in 2008. It took no great genius to see the question coming: Obama's face was on the cover of that week's Time Time, beside a headline that read ”Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President.” Axelrod, impersonating Russert, intoned, ”And so, Senator, here's the tape. Is that still your position?”
Here was the question that had tied Hillary Clinton in knots in 2003, that twelve years earlier had caused her husband to stage a contrived tour around Arkansas to solicit a release from his pledge not to run for president. But Obama hardly gave the conundrum a moment's thought. He couldn't see any point in s.h.i.+lly-shallying over what was patently true. ”I'm gonna tell him no,” he said to Axelrod and Gibbs. ”I think it's best to say I'm reconsidering.”
A few minutes later, Obama was on the phone with Mich.e.l.le. Following previous orders, Gibbs whispered urgently, ”Tell her about tomorrow!” But Obama already had. Mich.e.l.le wasn't pleased with what her husband planned to say-she had serious doubts about the notion of a presidential bid-but she was under no illusions about what was going on inside her husband's head.
Obama's new answer on Meet the Press Meet the Press-Russert: ”It's fair to say you're thinking about running?” Obama: ”It's fair, yes”-set off a firestorm in the press, all right. A firestorm of febrile excitement over the possibility that he was running, and of a.n.a.lysis about what it might mean and how it might play out. Few in the media seemed to notice or care that Obama had broken his pledge, preferring instead to praise his candor.
With Obama now leaving the door ajar (even if only ”a bit,” as he said on the air), an even greater frisson suffused his homestretch campaigning in the two weeks before the midterms. He was often doing four events a day, hopscotching from state to state to raise last-minute cash for inc.u.mbents and challengers alike. The punis.h.i.+ng schedule made Obama grouchy. ”Why the f.u.c.k am I going to Indiana?” he squawked to Hopefund's political director, Alyssa Mastromonaco.
”There are three candidates, and they're running out of money. If we can go and raise $200,000 at this fund-raiser, we'll keep them on the air through Election Day,” she retorted.
”Really?” Obama asked skeptically, but then agreed to go. (All three candidates won.) On the Sunday before the midterms, Obama attended church in Tennessee with Democratic congressman Harold Ford, Jr., the African American Senate candidate there, whose campaign had been rocked by a negative TV ad that fanned fears of miscegenation, a reminder to Obama that race was still a combustible electoral factor. He did stops in Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa-where Hildebrand could be found handing out hundreds of unauthorized ”Obama for President” b.u.t.tons that he'd had made up-and traveled to St. Louis to campaign for Claire McCaskill.
At that last stop, thousands of people lined up for hours outside the World's Fair Pavilion to hear Obama speak. Among those onstage was former Missouri senator Tom Eagleton, who had briefly been George McGovern's running mate in 1972 and was among the party's most beloved figures. Dressed in yellow pants and a green crew-neck sweater, Eagleton was nearly eighty years old and in poor health; this would be his last major public appearance before his death.
But Eagleton desperately wanted a gander at Obama. When the event was over, he approached McCaskill and marveled, ”I haven't seen people want to touch someone that way since Bobby Kennedy.”
ON NOVEMBER 8, the day after the Democrats routed the congressional GOP, retaking control of Congress and repudiating George W. Bush, Obama drove to the brick building in the River North neighborhood of Chicago that housed the offices of Axelrod's consulting firm. He was there to have a private lunch with Bill Daley. Daley was the seventh and youngest child of the storied Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley; his brother, Richie, currently occupied City Hall. A banker now, Bill Daley had served as the secretary of commerce in Bill Clinton's second term. Daley knew the Clintons well-how ruthless they were, how crazy their world was, and how vulnerable Hillary might be to the right kind of nomination challenge.
All of which was why Obama was meeting Daley that day. The midterms were past, it was time to get serious about ”the options,” and Obama wasn't wasting a moment. ”Yeah, you gotta run,” Daley told him right off the bat. ”Why not? What have you got to lose? Can you win? I think you can. You know, who knows? You don't know, but why wouldn't you? What's the negative here? What are you gonna wait for?”
Obama brought up the issue of money: Could he raise enough to be compet.i.tive? ”I don't think money's your problem,” Daley said. Judging by his performance the past two years, Obama was a money magnet, and one who might be able to change the game by tapping into small donors to an unprecedented degree. Daley, in fact, suggested that Obama could afford not to rush into the race. Maybe he should take a little more time, prepare himself better for what a challenge to Hillary would entail.
”You don't understand,” Daley said. ”Running around doing fundraisers for other people is not running for president. These people, the Clintons, for thirty-five years, this is what they do. You've done this now for a couple of years. This is their life. This is, like, 24/7 for them. Hillary knows where she's going for lunch next March, okay? It's a very different thing here.” What Daley was thinking was, Be ready, because the s.h.i.+t's gonna come at you big-time. Be ready, because the s.h.i.+t's gonna come at you big-time.
Daley was struck by how much consideration Obama already seemed to have devoted to his hypothetical candidacy. To the suggestion that he hang back, Obama responded that he didn't have the luxury of time; if he dawdled, Hillary would lock up too many big donors and key operatives. Obama was clear about something else, which also struck Daley-for its chutzpah.
”If I can win Iowa,” Obama said, ”I can put this thing away.”
Yet for all his bravado, Obama was still ambivalent about getting into the race, for reasons personal and political. The personal ambivalence was complex and nebulous, but could be resolved down the road. The political ambivalence was more pressing and revolved around one question: Could he and his advisers chart a plausible pathway to victory?
The cartographic endeavor began in earnest a few hours after his lunch with Bill Daley ended. The setting was the same: the fourth-floor conference room in Axlerod's office. On the table were cookies, bottled water, and soda. Around it were the members of Obama's personal and professional brain trust: Mich.e.l.le, Jarrett, and his close friend, Marty Nesbitt; Axelrod, Gibbs, Rouse, Mastromonaco, Hildebrand, and Axelrod's business partner, David Plouffe. Over the next few hours, Obama received from the group what amounted to a crash course: Presidential Politics 101-the logistics, the mechanics, the calendar, how the whole thing worked. His knowledge about the topic was limited (alarmingly so, thought some at the table), his initial questions rudimentary. How much of his time would be required? How often would he be on the road? Mich.e.l.le asked if he could come home every weekend-or at least every Sunday-to be with his family.
”Yes, he can have Sundays off,” Hildebrand blurted out.
Bulls.h.i.+t, thought Mastromonaco. Crazy Crazy, thought Gibbs. Almost to a person, the Obama brain trust was determined that their boss understand how hard running for the White House would be, that none of the bitter realities of the process be sugarcoated. Axelrod and Rouse had long wondered if Obama had the requisite inferno raging in his belly. They wanted him to enter the race eyes wide open, both for his own sake and so there would be no recriminations later.
Hildebrand didn't care one whit about raising Obama's consciousness. He wanted him, needed him, to run. He was so enamored of Obama that he was willing to say just about anything to get him in, no matter how nonsensical. Sundays off? Sure! We'll do things differently, we'll use the Web, we'll make it work, he a.s.sured Obama.
No, we won't, Plouffe cut in. And no, you can't come home on Sundays.
Rail-thin, pretense-free, incapable of artifice, Plouffe had run winning campaigns at the senatorial, congressional, and gubernatorial levels, as well as worked on two prior presidentials. He knew the score. You have two choices, he told Obama. You can stay in the Senate, enjoy your weekends at home, take regular vacations, and have a lovely time with your family. Or you can run for president, have your whole life poked at and pried into, almost never see your family, travel incessantly, bang your tin cup for donations like some street-corner beggar, lead a lonely, miserable life.
That's your choice, Plouffe explained. There's no middle ground, no short cuts-especially when you're running against Hillary Clinton.
The estimability of the putative Clinton endeavor hovered over the discussion, weighing on Obama. But the people around the table were no rookies at this game; if you had to start from scratch, they were among the best in the business to start there with. Their att.i.tude toward the Clinton machine was clinical and uncowed. The machine was real, but it could be broken down into two const.i.tuent parts: personnel and money. Axelrod a.s.sured Obama that there were plenty of top-flight players in the party who wouldn't be working for Hillary, especially in the four states that would kick off the nomination contest: Iowa, New Hamps.h.i.+re, Nevada, and South Carolina.
Iowa loomed large in Axelrod's mind. Twenty years earlier, when he worked for Paul Simon's underdog campaign, the Illinois senator lost the caucuses to another candidate from a neighboring state, Missouri congressman d.i.c.k Gephardt, by just one percentage point. The lesson for Axelrod was that proximity mattered; that having Chicago as his home base would allow Obama to penetrate Iowa more readily and thoroughly than his would-be rivals, including Clinton. Focusing on Iowa and the other early contests also addressed the second of Hillary's advantages. Though she would likely raise a ton of dough, n.o.body doubted that Obama could come up with enough to match her in the first four, modest-sized, states.
Obama himself had been fixated on Iowa since the steak fry. He had a good feeling about the place, but that wasn't enough. If the Hawkeye State was going to be so crucial to his chances, he wanted details. Much of November would be spent gathering them, with Hildebrand quietly dispatched to Iowa to do reconnaissance.
One night later that month, Hildebrand's phone rang in Sioux Falls, waking him from a sound sleep. Obama was on the line. For the next forty-five minutes he quizzed Hildebrand about every conceivable Iowa-related topic: how he would fare against Edwards in rural counties; the impact of media coverage spilling over from Illinois into the Iowa communities along the Mississippi River; which local officials they could expect to bring on board as endorsers. Hildebrand told him that he, Mich.e.l.le, and the girls would all have to spend a lot of time in Iowa-and also that the catalyst for winning there would be bringing new voters into the process. If we run a traditional campaign, Hildebrand said, we're doomed.
Axelrod had a complementary view, which he laid out for Obama. In every election, Axelrod argued, the inc.u.mbent defines the race, even if he isn't on the ballot. Which meant 2008 was going to be defined by Bush. And given the enmity that the president had inspired in the Democratic Party, Axelrod went on, the overwhelmingly liberal primary and caucus electorate would be hungry for a candidate representing the sharpest possible departure from 43: one who promised to be a unifier and not a polarizer; someone nondogmatic and uncontaminated by the special-interest cesspool that Was.h.i.+ngton had become; and, critically, someone seen as a staunch and principled opponent of the war raging in Iraq. Now, who had a better chance of being that someone-Hillary or Barack? The question answered itself.
Axelrod's contention was bolstered by a conversation that Obama had with Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel, an Illinois congressman and another of Axelrod's clients, was one of the shrewdest and most aggressive pols of his generation. He was also a veteran of the Clinton White House, intimately aware of how the former First Couple operated. They're gonna do what they gotta do to win-and this is not patty-cake, Emanuel told Obama. But could they be had? They could be had. There's a soft underbelly with them.
The contours of Hillary's vulnerabilities were revealed in detail by polling and focus group testing in Iowa that the Obama brain trust secretly commissioned a few weeks later, near the end of 2006. Though the polling put Obama in third place behind Edwards and Clinton, he was within striking distance of both. Not bad, considering that Edwards had been practically living in Iowa for two years already and that Clinton was . . . well, Clinton.
More striking were the focus groups, which were conducted in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Almost uniformly, the people in the groups reacted favorably to Obama-to his 2002 speech opposing the war, his rhetoric of change and unity, his freshness and sense of promise. Rarely did they express grave misgivings about his race or his exotic background. The more they knew about his biography and bearing, the more they liked him. In one of the sessions, after watching a video clip of Obama, a white woman said, ”There's something about that guy; that's the guy I want. I can't even put it into words.”
Observing from behind a two-way mirror, Axelrod was floored. ”We can't forget that woman,” he said to his colleagues. ”We have something special here. I feel like I've been handed a porcelain baby”-something very, very precious, but very fragile.
The results of the focus groups were equally encouraging when it came to Clinton. She was well known, well liked, and well respected, but inspired nagging doubts. She registered with partic.i.p.ants as status quo, as the past and not the future; she stirred up memories of the partisan bickering of the nineties, the Clinton-Gingrich contretemps, Monica, and impeachment. Her standing among women was much stronger than it was among men, but there was no sweeping feminist imperative to support her. ”I do want a woman to be president of the United States,” one female voter said, ”but not this one.”
BY THE END OF November 2006, Obama could see a route to beating Clinton. Not an easy highway to navigate, by any means, but at least one clearly marked and mapped. And he could also see that the biggest roadblock ahead of him was another woman entirely.
From the get-go, Mich.e.l.le Obama had made it plain that she didn't want Barack to run for president. She was wary beyond words, for a long time refusing to discuss the concept, even with her closest friends. The citation of spousal hesitation is, of course, a timeworn trope in American presidential politics. Every male candidate loftily affirms that he couldn't possibly go ahead without his wife's full support, but as a matter of course, Y-chromosome ambition trumps X-chromosome reluctance. Really, it's no contest.
But with Barack and Mich.e.l.le, it was. Obama adored his wife, genuinely believed she was his better half, that he'd be lost without her. He didn't even bother to pretend that he enjoyed anyone else's company remotely as much as he relished being with her and their daughters. As the midterms approached, he told his advisers more than once, I'm not doing this if Mich.e.l.le's not comfortable, and she's certainly not there yet.
She had always been a gut-level skeptic about the gaga-ness around her husband. In the wake of the drooling adulation poured on him after his convention speech, she suspected that he would be treated like ”the flavor of the month,” a pa.s.sing fancy soon discarded by a fickle political culture. As she watched people fawning over him at his swearing-in to the Senate, she said dryly to a reporter, ”Maybe one day he'll do something to merit all this attention.”
She had no doubt that day would come. Her confidence in Barack was profound and unshakable. But in the meantime, she was perfectly miserable with him being in the Senate. The Robinson family had been close-knit: a homemaker mother, a munic.i.p.al-employee father, and a basketball-star brother who ate dinner every night together with her in a one-bedroom brick bungalow on the South Side of Chicago. They were immersed in one another's daily lives, the highs and lows, the successes and traumas of childhood and adolescence. She wanted that badly for her daughters, too, and she wasn't getting it. She hadn't signed up for a commuter marriage. She was laboring to make it work, but when she was being honest, she admitted that she hated it; she was lonely too much of the time. There had been strains in their marriage back in 2000, when Barack had run unsuccessfully for Congress. Now she was being asked to talk about his running for president-and it felt like the rug was about to be pulled out from under her even more violently than it had been already.
One night midway through 2006, over a four-hour dinner with Jarrett, Mich.e.l.le let her frustrations pour out. ”This is hard,” she said. ”Really hard.” Jarrett decided not to even mention the presidential chatter. Mich.e.l.le was in a bad place emotionally. No point in making it worse.
But following the midterms, Mich.e.l.le had no choice but to grapple with the subject. After that first November meeting in Axelrod's office, the Obamas, Jarrett, and Marty Nesbitt went for dinner at Coco Pazzo, an Italian joint they loved. Mich.e.l.le was going on and on about her issues. She had a lot of questions-and also a lot of fears. She'd been worried about Barack's safety since he entered the Senate. Now he would be an even bigger target, and so would she and the girls. Could the campaign keep their family safe?
The atmosphere was tense. Finally, Jarrett interrupted and said, ”Let's try this from a different perspective. Mich.e.l.le, let's say Barack answers all your questions to your full satisfaction and he's got an answer for every one of them. Are you in?”
”I'm in a hundred and ten percent,” Mich.e.l.le said. But she wasn't going to let her husband get away with the ”We'll figure it out” bl.u.s.ter that he was p.r.o.ne to employ over contentious matters. Turning to Barack, she said, ”You're going to be really specific with me. You're going to tell me exactly how we're going to work it out.”
All the stress seemed to drain right out of Obama's posture. His shoulders slackened, his face softened. It was the first time he'd ever heard Mich.e.l.le say that she could get behind his running. Her list, he knew, would be long and involved, but it would be finite-a mountain that he could scale.
Most of the questions on Mich.e.l.le's list involved their daughters. How are you going to continue being a father to them? How many days will you be home? How are you going to communicate with the girls when you're away? How often are you going to talk to them? Are you going to come to parent-teacher conferences? What about recitals? But other questions were directed elsewhere. How are you going to take care of your health? Are you going to quit smoking? (That was a deal-breaker, she claimed.) And then there was this: How are we, as a family, going to withstand the personal attacks that will certainly be coming?
Barack knew Mich.e.l.le was right to be worried about the hammer that would fall on both of them if he ran. But he believed it was possible to rise above the distortions and j'accuses j'accuses that had turned politics into the sort of unedifying blood sport from which so many Americans recoiled. Obama was also resolute about not attempting to turn the onslaught against his opponents. Oh, he'd throw punches when it was necessary-he would never shy away from a vigorous fight. But if he had to become just another hack, gouging out eyes and wallowing in the mud to do this thing, then it wasn't worth doing. If he got in, he told Mich.e.l.le and his brain trust, he would be in with both feet, for sure. ”But I'm also going to emerge intact,” he said. ”I'm going to be Barack Obama and not some parody.” that had turned politics into the sort of unedifying blood sport from which so many Americans recoiled. Obama was also resolute about not attempting to turn the onslaught against his opponents. Oh, he'd throw punches when it was necessary-he would never shy away from a vigorous fight. But if he had to become just another hack, gouging out eyes and wallowing in the mud to do this thing, then it wasn't worth doing. If he got in, he told Mich.e.l.le and his brain trust, he would be in with both feet, for sure. ”But I'm also going to emerge intact,” he said. ”I'm going to be Barack Obama and not some parody.”
It was an extraordinary statement, the kind that few standard-issue pols would think to make when planning a long-shot adventure with their advisers. What gave him such an a.s.sured posture was his experience of the past two years-an experience that was without precedent in modern American politics. In his brief time on the national scene, Obama had compiled a staggering succession of big-stage triumphs that took the breath away. The convention speech. The Africa trip. The book tour. Appearances on Oprah Oprah and on the covers of and on the covers of Time Time and and Newsweek. Newsweek. The reception he'd received from the media had been uniformly glowing, and that fed Obama's sense that he could somehow transcend the horror show. Maybe that was insanely naive. Maybe it was incandescently mature. But at that moment, he had no reason to believe that it was anything but perfectly sound. The reception he'd received from the media had been uniformly glowing, and that fed Obama's sense that he could somehow transcend the horror show. Maybe that was insanely naive. Maybe it was incandescently mature. But at that moment, he had no reason to believe that it was anything but perfectly sound.
OBAMA FLEW TO ORANGE COUNTY, California, on December 1 to take part in an event at the Saddleback megachurch run by Rick Warren, the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven Life. The Purpose Driven Life. It was World AIDS Day, and Warren had invited Obama to appear alongside Republican senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Brownback, speaking first, remarked to Obama, ”Welcome to my house,” prompting peals from the crowd. When Obama's turn came, he remarked, ”There is one thing I've gotta say, Sam, though: This is my house, too. This is G.o.d's house.” He quoted Corinthians and advocated the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. At the end, the huge crowd of conservative Evangelicals awarded him a standing ovation. It was World AIDS Day, and Warren had invited Obama to appear alongside Republican senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Brownback, speaking first, remarked to Obama, ”Welcome to my house,” prompting peals from the crowd. When Obama's turn came, he remarked, ”There is one thing I've gotta say, Sam, though: This is my house, too. This is G.o.d's house.” He quoted Corinthians and advocated the use of condoms to prevent the spread of HIV. At the end, the huge crowd of conservative Evangelicals awarded him a standing ovation.