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Tensions on the Campaign Team
Plouffe concedes that neither he nor Axelrod were “fans of the Hillary option.” That line alone deserves an Olympic medal for understatement.
“Hillary did not make the last cut,” Plouffe explains, without a trace of disappointment. “At the end of the day, Obama decided that there were just too many complications outweighing the potential strengths. But I gave him a lot of credit for so seriously thinking about his fierce former rival. Some in the Clinton orbit thought we gave Hillary short shrift. My view is that any serious consideration was somewhat surprising given all the complications and the toxicity during the primary campaign.”
But those complications didn’t materialize at the end of the day; they were there from the start. And Obama’s entire inner circle knew it. What this decider wanted to do was consider all options, even the ones he—and they—knew he was not prepared to take.
Obama’s approach to McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin was even more interesting. It’s one thing to revisit your private decisions; it’s another to revisit your campaign’s public statements.
But that’s what Obama does in issuing a personal statement about the Palin pick just hours after his own team trashed the new GOP veep candidate.
“We decided to call McCain on the experience card directly,” Plouffe writes. “The value was in making him look political—essentially, calling him full of shit—and we sent out a release making that clear…Our statement immediately received an enormous amount of attention because it went right at her experience. The press clearly sensed heat and was eager to help drive the fight. Seeing the reaction, I began to think perhaps we had misfired. Obama clearly thought so. He called me from the air. “Listen, I just told this to Axelrod and [communications director Robert] Gibbs,” he began. “I understand the argument you guys were trying to make. And maybe we should make it someday. But not today. We shouldn't have put out the first part of that statement. I want to put out another statement that simply welcomes her to the race, and I'll call her and congratulate her when I land.”
It would not be the last time that Plouffe and Obama would disagree about a sharp attack on the GOP ticket. As I write in Renegade, Obama was unhappy with the campaign’s ad that attacked McCain for his role in the Keating Five scandal.
But he never made those disagreements public, as he did with the Palin reaction. In Plouffe’s account, the campaign manager pleaded with the candidate not to publicly dump his team. But Obama went ahead and did it anyway. (To be fair to Obama, Plouffe hardly objected to the corrected reaction to Palin; what he objected to was a public admission of error.) “I didn't disagree but thought backtracking would only add to the sense in the press that perhaps Palin was a brilliant game-changing pick that had scrambled the race,” Plouffe writes. “Even the famously disciplined Obama campaign can't get its story straight—this would be the blowback. ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘simply say that you're adding your own personal voice, one principal to another.’” He acknowledged that he understood and would watch his words. “We'll send out a personal statement from you and Biden,” I said, “but it's important you not suggest we misfired on the original statement. Don't throw the campaign under the bus.”
“But when he took a few questions from the press later that day, he proceeded to drive the bus right over us. “I think that, you know, campaigns start getting these hair triggers, and the statement that Joe and I put out reflects our sentiments,” he said. Great, I thought, already imagining the heat we'd take on this. But all in all, I felt solid about our instincts. Despite our clumsiness, I still thought we had nailed, in the predawn hours, what this pick would mean over time.”
So this decider is unpredictable and a second-guesser. He shies from overt attacks and is ready to correct mistakes in public. Everything is a learning experience, even if the lessons are embarrassing and strain the team. From the Palin reaction to health-care reform and the strategy review on Afghanistan, this work in progress is partially on public display.
Richard Wolffe is Daily Beast columnist and an award-winning journalist, and senior strategist at Public Strategies. He covered the entire length of Barack Obama's presidential campaign for Newsweek magazine. His book, Renegade: The Making of a President, was published by Crown in June.
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varmint
So? Did anyone predict McCain's pick or does anyone doubt McCain has second-guessed that decision? This new decider shies from overt attacks, on other Americans, and is confident enough to correct his mistakes in public. Everything is a learning experience. "The Team", is made up of adults... right... they can handle the strain of embarrassment. From the Palin reaction to health-care reform and the strategy on Afghanistan, this work of progress is on view for the world to see.
It late, the above is lame, but it was partially fun to write anyway. I think Richard had fun also.
oliverckerr
This decider wears eye shadow, the first president in our history to allow his make up crew to dress his eyes. Sometimes they stroke his eye lashes with goop, too.
I have a bunch of youtube files for proof in a short and sweet article but there isn't a noose paper off line or on willing to go with it. The fear of every editor to run the piece is scandalous.
Barky Obama wears eye shadow.
slmpirate
Oliverckerr,
What is the relavence to your assertion and this article?
xlntcat
You are misinformed or deliberately making misstatements. Obama even objects to the powder they use to take the shine off the camera. Now do you want to tell us about your make-up tricks. You have no credentials, no expertise, and no inside information. So why do you expect to be considered credible.
oliverckerr
Go to michaelslevinson.com
At the top of the page there are three links. Two of them are photographs of Jackie Kennedy arranged by her husband, Aristotle Onnassis. She is stark naked on the beach at Skorpios.
The 3rd link is a pdf Barky Obama wears eye shadow. Download the file, which consists mostly of still shots from you tube and links to the youtube page and the full videos.
You can clearly see for yourself that Barky Obama is wearing eye shadow. This does not take an expert. The videos are NOT touched up, but his eyes are. Sometimes they do his lashes, to with a brush.
His handlers evidently feel the eye shadow makeup gives him a more intense look for his teleprompter speeches. Just look at the you tube videos and you can see this for yourselves! Use the freeze button.
Looking for your self does not require credentials, expertise, or inside information.
On my own make up tricks:
When I was five years old I read an article in my mother's Ladies Home Journal that the skin beneath the eye was very delicate and you should never use soap to wash your eyes, rather cold cream, (or noxema).
At age five I thought this was very serious. That I did not want any wrinkles under my eyes. So over the last six decades I have applied soap to the area under my eyes . . . less than twelve times.
That's it! The truth is out. My secret for wrinkle free, youthful eyes.
michaelslevinson.com
PS: Big time article here:
www.opednews.com/articles/The-Afghanistan-Solution-by-jacklegsjumpingup- 091026-532.html&show=votes#allcomments
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oliverckerr
Visit my web site and download the pdf file at the top of the page, Barky Obama wears eye shadow. You will see still shots of a video where Barky was at a white tie and tails dinner, his eyes as heavily made up as Liz Taylor's back in her day.
michaelslevinson.com
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annrevere
Oh man, go back to bed, will ya?
johnnyapplecd
You know, Lev, between this and your comments about "cross-dressing perverts", I am really convinced that you are just a homphobic piece of shit.
Who cares if he wears makeup? What has that got to do with anything at all?
oliverckerr
I refer to j. edgarina as a fascist cross dressing pervert of dirt.
We know that Hoover hung out with one other man his whole life, Clyde Tolson. It is believed in strictest privacy Hoover liked to dress up for Clyde in ladies' underwear.
Hoover was always gathering dirt on people - their private lives. On a personal note, I lived for many years with my mother. She was my best friend.
When I was inspired with a giant work of art to perform on world wide television, like old blind Homer, from dusk until dawn, with thousands of recitable lines in my head, she took care of me while I spent ten months and twelve hours a day, writing it down - what became a prophetic work of art with more than a dozen world events carefully, explicitly described in advance.
Circa 1970 - 1971 two dudes knocked on our door the day before my mother was getting new wall to wall rugs. They had a cock and bull story about this new antenna system for the building and with the lines coming into the house we would get Hamilton and Toronto TV free. So we said OK.
They were FBI guys. They bugged the living room, and my mother's bedroom. We uncovered that in 1980. What did that fascist mental degenerate j. edgarina imagine he would gather with a bug and tape recording of everything that happened in my mother's bedroom? (He was the scumbag you emulate).
The years of tapes indicate she snored very lightly and always kept the window open a crack in the dead of winter.
You exhibit at all times the degenerate fascist mentality. You have a prob limb.
On the issue: Who cares if Barky Obama wears make up. Do you, douche dirt bag, wear make up? Would you allow someone to dress your eyes before a speech? People have been using talc to eliminate the shine from sweat and skin oil before going on TV, but getting their eyes made up, with mascara on the lashes . . . ?
The president allowed his handlers to talk him into it. Barky is a winner, not a leader. And you yappleseed are a follower of Hoover and his minions, likely as secretly perverted as the cross dressing fascist you love so much.
michaelslevinson.com
ittybittykitty
So what? Any politician who appears on TV wears make-up. Ever since the Nixon/Kennedy debates when Nixon looked so awful and it effected people's opinions. Reagan (former actor) did, as well as McCain, and anyone who appears regularly in front of a camera. If you want to find fault with Obama look at some real issues. I am sick of these superficial complaints. Maybe it's because you can't think of anything else? Childish. Sticks and stones....
oliverckerr
Dear ittybittykitty,
I was prompted to research some videos on youtube and i wrote a short article, beginning with an old quote, "The eyes window the soul, by the shape of the window, you can tell where the soul has been."
On the issue of real issues:
Last week, Obama made a speech at a Progress Energy plant about 200 million dollars in stimulus money to Progress Energy for solar voltaic units they are operating and also improving our elec-trickle grid. Barky said this was creating 400 jobs.
With a simple executive order Barky could override all the local ordinances nationwide that prohibit home ownrs in the cities from having windmills attached to their houses, with the goal of every home in America becomming an energy incubator, producing more than they use.
But Money & Power want to control the power so they make the money.Simple and as obvious as that! Obama is one of the politishinz. Money & Power funded his campaign, so he is with them, going their way.
With the policy of making every home in America an energy incubator, my program, as a candidate for president, Barky would be creating close to 750,000 actual good paying jobs.
michaelslevinson.com
r-kive
Listen people, isn't it obvious that this joker oliverckerr is just trying to increase traffic on his website by baiting all of you with this inane babble? Just leave it alone and maybe, hopefully he will just disappear.
greengirl
And if true it matters because........................??????????
Find something to do oliver.
oliverckerr
It matters because male leaders don't do eye shadow. It doesn't make his speech any more intense.
By pointing this out perhaps his handlers will stop dressing his eyes which to me would mean there are a few White House people reading The Daily Beast, as I suspect.
This whole thread began as a mini - comment and you all went berserk.
michaelslevinson.com
bobj72
"oliverckerr"; You are OBSESSED over this Male African American President. And it Certainly Doesn't Seem To Be In A "HEALTHY WAY!"
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oliverckerr
I am not obsessed over the president. He is my choice for vice - president; from my point of view, this term, getting on-the-job training.
At a certain time in my first term as president i am going to have to spend more than a month almost totally alone working out every line to be chanted, spoken and / or sung in my Vehicle for World Peace, my proposed world wide dusk until dawn "thriller," Peace / will he make it?
Will the world's peoples agree?
That is my plan, to deliver the world to peace - the first peaceful night in more than five thousand years of recorded history, with every line a delicate sensible multi lingual line, so every one in the world hears some of their own words and knows they are a part of the program, which is, in the living flesh, God's program: words, world orders and word hors d'oeuvres, a new word order.
The fascists on this web site despise these ideas.
I expect to begin with a couple hymns and maybe a prayer, sticking to the written down 112 page double column Television Scripture, and then retell the story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum and trace all the generations of men and "eggs plain," how the shiny Cheyenne-Easy people became yellow skinned, and more, how Man arrived on the set, how God actually created man.
Oh! Something in your DNA you don't know about.
Then settle the serious issues of turf on good ship mother urf, and move along into the ecology measures we have to take as a world united, to return Mother Earth to her Mother Nature's delightful balance. And i have to convince all the world's peoples to go along with what "eye" say.
I'm not obsessed with performing my spoken poem for all man kind, but i am sure interested in doing it. I figure the idea is worth a Nobel Prize, a CULTURAL event to initiate world peace, and the written down work might qualify for the prize in Literature, too. I am maybe a little obsessed about the hat trick as I see the programs we need for full economic renewal and those programs could lead to world wide economic renewal.
I will present those programs here, or move to China, as many Chinese regularly visit my web site.
But this web site with all of its fascist censors is sadly not the place for true discussion about anything. That's too bad.
r-kive now you wouldn't happen to be one of j. edgarina's minions, that cross dressing pharaoh of fascists, the pervert of dirt who stood shoulder to shoulder with Himmler, Goebbels and Hitler, the insidious American fascist who destroyed the First Amendment rights of three hundred million people, would you. I am accurate about who you are.
michaelslevinson.com
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oliverckerr
I realize from certain angles eyes can appear to have powder shadow on the lids but are actually clean. Barky Obama's are not. The applicators experimented with different techniques and they have settled into a very subtle application. They have. Were he a real leader, beyond being a winner, he would not allow it. Ronald reagan did not wear eye shadow!
michaelslevinson.com
johnnyapplecd
Ronald Reagan was a fascist piece of shit that turned greed into a virtue and sold america to the corporations. He could've used a little makeup.
As I have told you before Lev, you have me confused with someone who has a similar username. I hate Hoover, but I also hate homophobes, and people who can't attack someone on their actions without reverting to ad hominem attacks on their bedroom tendencies.
You have no idea what "world peace" means, so you are incapable of bringing it to anyone. Dropping bombs for peace is like fucking for virginity.
oliverckerr
There is someone named johhnyappleseed.
For the record, i am not a homophobe.
In 1969 i was inspired to write down (hand letter) 112 page double column work of "to-be-spoken-out-loud words, it turns out, prophetic poem for purposes of performing on world wide television, from dusk until dawn, thus creating the first peaceful night in five thousand years of recorded history because every one in the world will be at home instead of out and about - in that sense all together as a world people.
I better have the write words in the right order or iamb in trubble.
Hoover was against the idea of some dirty Jew talking to all the worlds peoples. He had his fascist lieutenants to alter my college records, destroy my friendships, my career, my life on which his people made two attempts! The most recent was this year.
They bugged my mother's house where I lived, in 1970. We discovered this in 1980. There were two bugs. One in the living room, the other in my mother's bedroom. What did that pervert son of a bitch think was going on in my mother's house! Therefore i refer to him as the fascist cross dressing "pervert of dirt" because that was his style - to gather dirt on people except there wasn't any dirt to gather on my mother. (or me as far as I can tell)
From my point of view, world peace begins with a peaceful night with all the world's peoples doing the same thing at the same time- watching me tell my vision which incidentally, extends 185,000 years down the road to the end of time when earth (urf) will get to Vegas (the actual name of the star is Vega, but i calls it Vegas) and burn up in a crisp.
I have "know" idea what world peace means.
The fascists will do all in their power to deny my right to speak - to perform my creative work. The rest of the world will love it. The program more than likely WILL NOT play live in America, rather on media and power controlled tape delay. I expect i will be relocated to China where there is a greater interest in my creative programs for world stability, as there are more and more Chinese people accessing my web site every day.
You will find a wealth of material at alphabet-learning.com, youtube.com/poetprophet besides my soon-to-be-remodeled web site.
michaelslevinson.com
wolverine1987
"The press clearly sensed heat and was eager to help drive the fight."
Eager to help drive the fight? To drive the fight, you have to have a POV that supports the argument. Yet another tidbit that shows how easily the Obama campaign had it, and how easily (to now) that the President continues to have it in the press.
bobj72
"wolverine"; "The AGONY of Defeat" continues to surge, even til' today. (It just keeps coming back....... like a "Bad Dream" doesn't it???)
ThinkAgain
So who sent those 40 lawyers to Alaska to dig up dirt on Palin? For folks who insist they never thought she was a threat they sure sent a lot of attack dogs after her. No dirt? No problem. Just make some up!
They did the same to Stevens, actually withholding evidence proving his innocence of their trumped up cr*ap until after the election. The judge said he'd never seen such intentional abuse of the law! Liberals consider that a win... sure you got a mandate fools!
I can't wait until that little tactic comes back to bite them in the butt.
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bobj72
"square raper"; "The AGONY of Defeat" continues to surge, even til' today. (It just keeps coming back....... like a "Bad Dream" doesn't it???)
CabotAR
It is interesting to read what goes on behind the scenes of a political campaign, but the bias is pretty thick & unreliable for most of us. Of course, the revisionist will have a job for a long time.
If you want a good read, there is a new book just out where a small town in America stands up to federal tyranny & ends up being the spark that ignites the 2nd American Revolution. At least it's a thriller instead of a boring observation of a political campaign. I am encouraging others to read it cause it's germane to current events. If you like political thrillers, this is the one to read.
www.booksbyoliver.com
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