The Obama Campaign Is Not Kidding Around

[bigtree]

from Andrew Romano at Newsweek: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/01/inside-president-obama-s-reelection-machine.html


Jan 2, 2012 12:00 AM EST

Team Obama has quietly built a juggernaut reelection machine in Chicago.

The Obama campaign is not kidding around. I recently visited its headquarters in Chicago, and I can personally vouch for how much it’s not kidding around. Yes, there was a blue Ping-Pong table in the middle of the office—custom-made, evidently, because the Obama 2012 logo was emblazoned on it. (Twice.) There were printouts of people’s nicknames—Sandals! Shermanator!—where corporate nameplates usually go. There was a mesh trucker hat from South Dakota, which was blaze orange and said “Big Cock Country” on the crown. There was a cardboard speech bubble (“nom nom data nom”) affixed to an Uglydoll. There was miniature air-hockey table. A narwhal mural. A stuffed Rastafarian banana.

But do not be deceived. There was also a chaperone following me everywhere I went and digitally recording everything anyone said to me. Ben LaBolt, Obama’s press secretary, and Stephanie Cutter, his deputy campaign manager, closed their doors as I walked by. An underling clammed up when I asked what she and her colleagues do on the weekends. At one point my minder agreed to let me out of her sight for a few milliseconds, but then I got too close to a big whiteboard covered in hieroglyphic flow charts and she instantaneously materialized at my side, having somehow teleported the 50 yards from where I’d last seen her. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “You can’t look at that.” The next day it was covered by a tarp.

In short, the place is intense; Obama’s minions are very serious about lots of things, including the business of reminding themselves not to be so serious . . .

While the GOP candidates have spent the last year parading and pirouetting on Fox News, the president’s team has been quietly, methodically channeling their worry back into the campaign—and creating something, I discovered in Chicago, that will be even bigger, even smarter, and even more surprising than their revolutionary 2008 operation. Before my chaperone apprehended me near the whiteboard, I noticed a photograph taped to a developer’s Mac. “Everyone chill the fuck out,” it said. “I got this.” I knew the line; it had first appeared on a JPEG of Obama, scowling and resolute, that went viral in September 2008, during one of the Democratic Party’s inveterate panic attacks. But the president wasn’t in this particular picture. In his place was the operative in charge of getting him reelected: campaign manager Jim Messina. No doubt it was a comforting mantra for the developer, and for the rest of the twitchy Chicago crew: chilled-the-fuck-out-or-not, Messina’s got this.

Who knows? It may even turn out to be true . . .

The president’s greatest advantage, Messina explained, is time. Without a primary war to wage, his staff has been able to dedicate the past 10 months exclusively to general-election preparations—a head start not only over 2008 (and previous incumbents) but over a bumper crop of clumsy Republicans who have been too distracted by 2011’s 13 televised debates to bother with old-fashioned chores such as fundraising or field organizing. “We now have people on the ground all across the country who’ve spent four years, five years in our system and know how to do this, who believe in this guy, and who are trained,” Messina told me. “That’s just a huge piece of business. [Mitt] Romney and [Newt] Gingrich don’t have operations on the ground in these states . . .”


read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/01/inside-president-obama-s-reelection-machine.html


(Greg Ruffing / Redux for Newsweek

[AtomicKitten]

1. I look forward to the campaign.

Election 2008 was one the best rides of my life.

[joshcryer]

2. It's going to be so fun. :)

[99th_Monkey]

3. You are welcome, i.e. that I'm NOT running against Obama in the Primaries.

Otherwise, Obama Team would't have this luxurious amount time to build a winning campaign...

and it is nice to know that Obama's "minions" (<=Daily Beast's word) are busily working

24/7 like Santa's Elves to re-elect our Democratic Lesser of Evil, President Obama.

I feel safer already.. But not nearly as safe as I'd feel if some of you "insiders" in Obama's

Campaign, would have a little chat with BO, maybe at the water cooler.

About how his very own constituents, who voted for him in 08 and want to again,

are sturggling to find any enthusiasm whatsoever for "Indefinite Detention" of US Citizens,
With NO right to a trial, with NO right to any phone calls to pesky attorney, and NO freedom
whatsoever to peaceably assemble in public space, for the redress of our grievances to the
USA Government.

[bigtree]

5. you act like Obama is floating in the air somewhere alone

He has a ready army of supporters willing and able to defend his candidacy against all-comers. Don't just suppose that they're all some 'insiders' or 'minions' or whatever other sycophantic description you want to apply. Most of his support he has seen right now is coming from a sizable majority of those who elected him last time around, so I don't think there we'll find any significant lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for defeating the republican nominee and providing this president a second-term.

[99th_Monkey]

29. I actually hope you are right, is I think the part you're not getting. ~nt

[Ikonoklast]

10. What's stopping you?

If you have more to offer, why aren't you busy getting on state ballots?


Doing is hard, throwing trash from the cheap seats is easy.

[JackRiddler]

28. Excellent answer. Can you give me starter numbers to get in touch with Goldman Sachs and the DLC?

[99th_Monkey]

30. Nothing is stopping me. I am a free spirit.

And as such have grave concerns about indef detention w/out trial or
attorneys, for "suspicion" of something or other having to do with gov't
endless war on terrah.

So I march, I organize and I make noise about it .. .here and elsewhere.
You know, to "Occupy the Vote".

[geckosfeet]

12. A lot of us, warm and cozy in our barely affordable living spaces, working in

factories doing repetitive tasks for the owners, do not fear 'indefinite detention without rights'. We submit willingly to part ownership and a reduction in autonomy in exchange for a certain level of physical and economic security. Perhaps we should fear the specter of 'indefinite detention without rights', but as semi-withdrawn lesser politically involved beings we do not see this as an immediate threat.

..his very own constituents, who voted for him in 08 and want to again, are sturggling to find any enthusiasm whatsoever for "Indefinite Detention" of US Citizens,
With NO right to a trial, with NO right to any phone calls to pesky attorney, and NO freedom whatsoever to peaceably assemble in public space, for the redress of our grievances to the USA Government.

Those on the front lines, the unemployed, OWS, the homeless, politically active and reactionary groups who live without economic security are bound to experience vulnerability. They are also more likely to be subjected to the avarice of the government (any government) and law enforcement agencies, and indeed, perhaps 'indefinite detention without rights'.

The people on the front lines represent risks to the government by informing us of the inequities and broken social contracts that government policies allow and sponsor. The front lines are mirrors, showing showing government it's darker side. I suspect that this makes people on the front lines more likely to experience 'indefinite detention without rights' as governments mistake the reflections of it's failings for the failings themselves.

[FarLeftFist]

17. Oh God, puh-leeze. Another mudslinger.

[Whisp]

32. maybe we'll see some of this...

during the debates. The pant shitter look every white Rethug fears.

[fascisthunter]

18. AWESOME REPLY!

quislings

[suivezlargent]

4. Obama will win for 1 reason and 1 reason only

the pubs running are all lunatics.

that is it.

If the pubs had 1 sane person running, they would beat Obama in a landside, and that is a fact.

[bigtree]

6. I don't remember a republican candidate in my lifetime who wasn't

. . . a lunatic.

[hootinholler]

26. Are you that young?

George H.W. Bush was most certainly not a lunatic. I have a rather large vocabulary to describe his evil ways, but lunatic is not in there.

[bigtree]

36. He's crazy, way out, far out, man.

"Ozone Man, Ozone. He's crazy, way out, far out, man."

I think the republican view of our country that he shared at the time and promoted was looney. I don't think he liked what he saw as the extremes in his party, but he wasn't immune from adopting many of them. I'm probably not going to convince you with that reasoning, but I've never seen the republican agenda as sane. It's so dishonest, abusive, and subversive that I have a hard time giving it any credit for substance. I think something is seriously wrong with those folks.

Bush was wound way tight. He didn't have any respect for our generation and thought all he had to do was pay us lip service and we'd just go away. He reminded me of an irritable old man shooing away kids from his front yard as he defended the status quo where his rich buddies orchestrated our nation's policies through the benefit of their associations with the folks they elected. Government was a good-old boys club then (much more so than now) and there was hardly any real accountability until Democrats began demanding answers from Reagan, and from H.W. when he assumed office. Bush bristled at every confrontation like he was shocked that anyone would even question the way things had been. He openly longed for times in our history when presidents could make decisions like kings and force Congress and the nation to follow. He looked, at the end of his first term, like a man who just lost his ability to order his servants around.

I can understand the motivation to place H.W. in a category above his son and his crazy predecessors and former allies. I just see them cut from the same cloth; albeit, H.W Bush was more self-conscious about flailing all that republican crazy around in public.

[Scootaloo]

7. If they're so crazy, why are "Progressives" in such a rush to help them get elected?

'Cause you know, it worked so fucking well in 2010!

[quaker bill]

8. I agree, the pubs running all sound like lunatics

have you wondered why? Do you think it is just random chance - luck of the draw? I don't.

Why have none of the "better" pubs signed on?

Could it perhaps be that only the "lunatic" pubs think they have a serious chance?

I think the "issues environment" created by BHO and the tea party influenced pub leadership leaves no room for a sane sounding campaign. Mittens found that attempts to sound sane did not work, so he gave up on it. This is why we don't see a sane challenge forming, there is no market for it.

[bigtree]

9. look

There isn't ONE of them that can come to the national stage and represent the policies that their party regularly promotes these days. Even more daunting to these other republican superstars supposedly sitting in the wings is that their own base is full of loonies who've grown up spoon-fed on FOX News' rovian world-view. There's not going to be a 'reasonable' republican candidate who can appeal to enough of their own electorate to make it past their primary. Therefore, there will never emerge some perfect republican candidate.

Incumbency is a different matter. Very difficult to unseat a sitting president.

[groundloop]

11. "Very difficult to unseat a sitting president" - but unfortunately very possible

Look at the last time it happened - Reagan's trickle down bullshit is still biting us in the ass. True, President Obama isn't perfect. True, it's difficult to beat an incumbent. But thinking about what we'd have to look forward to if one of the repubs got elected is reason enough to do everything possible to work just as hard as we did in 2008.

[geckosfeet]

13. A fact? Pulled out of your fact machine?

Lunacy is a desired quality among the pubs. They love the frenzied foaming at the mouth rallies. Reminds me of 1930's Germany.

[WI_DEM]

15. hardly a fact

it is your opinion. There are many good things that Obama has done and the economy, believe it or not, is getting better, according to many different statistics, and not just my opiniion.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. I was briefly worried that sane Repukes would coalesce around

Huntsman. That he's polling dead last in every poll I've seen tells me everything I need to know about the Repukes. This year's crop (Huntsman excepted) make Barry Goldwater '64 look positively sane by comparison.

[treestar]

20. So?

All it takes is to beat those lunatics. And that's a good thing.

The more marginalized they are, the better. One would think progressives would see that. When they can still get near 50% of the vote, that means half the voters are "lunatics." Having to live with these "lunatics" is not a pleasant thing. But having fewer of them means we don't have to feel the consequences of their choices.

[SidDithers]

22. Welcome to DU...

Looks like you'll fit right in.

Sid

[Whisp]

33. a fact according to sulvexlargent.

got to buy meself that book of facts you have.

[bigtree]

14. kick

[fascisthunter]

19. lol... only reason he will win is because there is no other option

which is a sad state of affairs for Americans in general. The GOP is too batshit nazi for most americans.

[bigtree]

21. when have they ever been anything other than?

Reagan was bat-shit crazy, but Carter lost that one.

Is there a republican in mind that you think would be superior to our Democratic nominee??

[Life Long Dem]

39. No other option because Obama is the best out there.

That's why Obama will win.

[Motown_Johnny]

23. Was there ever any doubt?

I always expected that the people who beat the Clinton machine with far fewer resources would develop the greatest political machine in history once they had the resources to do so.

[bigtree]

24. good point

[bigtree]

25. kick

[Scuba]

27. At the Occupy event in Milwaukee last fall I got a business card from a campaigner....

... it's a very high quality graphic printed on very heavy and rich-looking stock.


It left me unimpressed, and worrying that our money is being well-spent. A ping-pong table sounds like a great idea. Having the logo emblazoned on it, less so.

[bigtree]

34. much more to this article (and the campaign) than the ping pong table

probably should read through the rest . . .

[Whisp]

31. this is going to be so gawd damned good.

how many more sleeps?

[Number23]

35. Whisp, you are WELCOME that I'm not running against Obama in the primary

Because then... umm. Sorry. My ego got so big that it sucked all of the blood from my brain. (See post #3 for reference)

[Whisp]

37. 98 monkeys will vote for him.

big family.

[dmosh42]

38. Obama's re-election will be the only thing where he will show a lot of conviction!

[boxman15]

40. 2012 will be an even better-run campaign than 2008 for Obama.

Doesn't mean 2012 will be a cakewalk. Not even close. But, it should be fun.

[bigtree]

42. better organization

basics remain the same, though. If we run a good campaign, we'll win.

[Scurrilous]

41. Kick