Winning Formula
How Obama's team built a victory
The torch has been passed. At least it looks that way to me. Here's one reason why.
Hours before the Iowa results were in or known, top officials of Sen. Barack Obama's campaign told me what the final numbers would be: Obama would win by at least seven points and the turnout in the Democratic caucuses would be well above 200,000.
The final figures: eight points and 236,000.
I mention this for one reason: to say that, among other things, the 2008 Iowa caucuses will be remembered as the place where a new generation of superb Democratic organizers made its debut.
Obama rode to victory on a tide of emotion, charisma and desire for change. But mark this: these kids—and most of them are kids—beat the older crowd of traditional operatives at their own game and did it with tech and Internet savvy, brains, fund-raising skills, connections, street smarts and old-fashioned shoe-leather dedication.
History is the accumulation of small, individual acts—and the acts of the Obama kids in Iowa together made history. My sense is that they are poised to make a lot more.
Now, don't forget: these same people, operating out of Washington and Chicago, organized a Net-based fund-raising effort that allowed Obama to outspend Hillary Clinton. But they used that money to good advantage on caucus night.
I have read about or seen with my own eyes this kind of wave before: in the Kennedy campaign of 1960 (all those Harvard guys and Navy guys and younger-generation Irish guys); in the Ronald Reagan's campaign of 1976 and 1980 (the other side, the conservative side, of the Baby Boom); the tough-as-nails Clinton kids (they were kids once) such as Mandy Grunwald, George Stephanopoulos and Paul Begala.
And now, the new crowd.
Last September I sat down with Paul Tewes, a low-key Minnesotan who had been dispatched to Des Moines to assemble Obama's Iowa organization. He marveled at the quality of the young people—mostly recent college grads—who had shown up, called or written about working for him. "You wouldn't believe the resumes I've gotten," he said, pointing to a stack of papers in the corner of his disheveled office. "I've got more Rhodes Scholars than I know what to do with," he said with a shrug.
My thought: oh sure, you've got smart kids with degrees from fancy colleges. Good academic skills. But what do they know? And will they really do the work when the weather gets cold? Or were they mostly here to hang out with each other for the fun of it?
Well, they had fun, but while they were in Iowa they figured out how the game worked to an astonishing degree. Their methods were a mix of innovation and tradition. They took their cell phones and turned texting into an organizing tool (a technique that was used in Iraq, of all places, two years ago). They drew up precinct-walking maps with more color-coding and record-keeping than any I had ever seen (and I've seen many over the years.) They did more training of precinct captains for the caucuses than any other campaign—and, after they trained them, they trained them again.
And on caucus night, they outsmarted the old hands in garnering the second-alignment votes. In the few places where there were pockets of support for low-ranking candidates, the Obama people generally scooped them up to add to their man's total.
Thursday night, I talked to Tewes. He sounded almost overwhelmed. "This thing is huge," he said. He sounded just a bit surprised.
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Howard Fineman is Newsweek's Senior Washington Correspondent and Columnist, senior editor and deputy Washington bureau chief. He is the author of "Living Politics," a column that began on MSNBC.COM and Newsweek.com and that now also appears in the print magazine. An award-winning reporter and writer, Fineman also is an analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, appearing regularly on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "Hardball with Chris Matthews" and "TODAY." The author of scores of Newsweek cover stories, Fineman's work has appeared as well in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Republic. His 2008 national best-selling book, "The Thirteen American Arguments," was released in paperback by Random House in the spring of 2009.
One of the nation's leading political reporters, Fineman has interviewed every major presidential candidate from (then-vice president) George H.W. Bush in 1985 to (then senator) Barack Obama early and often in the 2008 campaign cycle. His current work focuses on the Obama Administration and its top officials, as well as on Congress and politics throughout the country. Although based in Washington, Fineman travels widely in the U.S. and has covered politics and other events in 49 of the 50 states.
Fineman's work has produced many milestones and awards. A cover story in November 2001 featured President George W. Bush's first extensive interview after 9/11. Another cover, "Bush and God," was part of a series of articles that won the 2003 National Magazine Award for General Excellence. His reporting has helped Newsweek win many honors from the Magazine Publishers Association and the American Journalism Review. Other awards include a "Page One" from the Headliners Club of New York, a "Silver Gavel" from the American Bar Association and a "Deadline Club" from the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). In 2006 he received the Alumni Award from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
As a reporter and writer, Fineman ranges widely. Besides campaign-year covers, other projects have included: race and politics, the impact of digital technology on society, the influence of Hollywood on politics, the rise of the religious right and of conservative talk radio. He has interviewed business leaders such as George Soros, Bill Gates, Steve Case and Robert Rubin and entertainment figures such as Warren Beatty, Jane Fonda and Jay Leno.
Although now under exclusive television contract to NBC, Fineman over the years has appeared on major public affairs shows, such as Nightline, Face the Nation, Fox News Sunday, Larry King Live, Charlie Rose and the NewsHour. He was a regular panelist on Washington Week in Review on PBS (1983-95) and on CNN's Capital Gang Sunday (1995-98). He worked with Ted Koppel on Nightline specials, and has been a guest on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report."
A native of Pittsburgh, Fineman began his career at The Courier-Journal in Louisville, covering the environment, the coal industry and state politics before joining the newspaper's Washington bureau in 1978. He moved to Newsweek in 1980, was named chief political correspondent in 1984, deputy Washington bureau chief in 1993, senior editor in 1995 and senior Washington correspondent and columnist in 2008.
Fineman holds an A.B., Phi Beta Kappa, from Colgate, an M.S. in journalism from Columbia and a J.D. from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. His legal education included a year as a visiting student at the Georgetown University Law Center. He received Watson and Pultizer Traveling Fellowships for study in Europe, Russia and the Middle East, and has traveled to more than 40 countries, among them China, Vietnam, Japan, Ukraine, Israel, Turkey and the West Bank Palestinian Territories.
Fineman is married to Amy L. Nathan, a senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission. They live in Washington with their two children, Meredith and Nicholas.
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