Plouffe’s Exit Interview

In the wake of his victory, it’s easy to forget just how long Barack Obama’s odds originally were. “We were huge underdogs,” says campaign manager David Plouffe in an interview with Portfolio. “I think that sometimes gets lost years later—‘Oh you raised all this money, you built this big organization.’ We were definitely a huge underdog in this campaign.” The interview focuses mostly on the primary, and Plouffe names the Clinton campaign’s “Achilles’ heel” as their focus on the national press. Obama’s team, meanwhile, focused on the individual primaries and the delegate count. In the end, it prepared them for the general election. “We had really been tested, and we went into the general election in very much fighting shape. We were ready for those five months because we had been through 54 primaries and caucuses, and run the gauntlet. McCain hadn't done that.”