Product Description

The architect of the Obama campaign reveals how it all happened- and how it will revolutionize our politics

David Plouffe not only led the effort that put Barack Obama in the White House, but he also changed the face of politics forever and reenergized the idea of democracy itself. The Audacity to Win is his story of that groundbreaking achievement, taking readers inside the remarkable campaign that led to the election of the first African American president.

For two years Plouffe worked side by side with Obama, charting the course of the campaign. His is the ultimate insider's tale, revealing both the strategies that delivered Obama to office and how the candidate and campaign handled moments of great challenge and opportunity. Moving from the deliberations about whether to run at all, through the epic primary battle with Hillary Clinton and the general election against John McCain, Plouffe showcases the high-wire gamesmanship that fascinated pundits and the drama and intrigue that captivated a nation.

The Audacity to Win chronicles the arrival of a new moment in American life at the convergence of digital technology and grassroots organization, and the exciting possibilities revealed by a campaign that in many ways functioned as a $1 billion start-up with laser-like focus and discipline. In this extraordinary book, David Plouffe unfolds one of the most important political stories of our time, one whose lessons are not limited to politics, but reach to the greatest heights of what we dream about for our country and ourselves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780670021338
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by David Greenberg Political consultants -- the handlers, hucksters, hacks, flacks, ghosts and other assorted spinmeisters who form the modern campaign's supporting cast -- bring forth our conflicted feelings about politics. Half the time we deride them as oleaginous sharpies who deal in half-truths and double talk. The rest of the time we revere them for their shamanistic wisdom and award them platforms from which to dispense it: lucrative newspaper columns, prominent talk-show gigs, cushy chairs at Harvard and the Council on Foreign Relations. And when they write memoirs, we know to expect shameless spin -- yet despite ourselves we hope for disclosures and insights into their magic. The latest spin king to enjoy his moment in the media sun is David Plouffe, the skillful campaign manager of Barack Obama's 2008 juggernaut, whose account of that historic triumph arrives as "The Audacity to Win" -- a title forthrightly indebted to Obama's own campaign book, "The Audacity of Hope." As with most political memoirs, its publication is itself a work of no small audacity, a request for us to lay down $27.95 for what is essentially a bound sheaf of press releases. Plouffe's prose, alas, doesn't much sweeten the deal. It's filled with business-speak ("takeaway" used repeatedly as a noun, as in, "It certainly was not the chief takeaway from the debate"; gratuitous, macho-posturing profanity ("they picked Sarah goddamn Palin," "let's go win this [expletive] thing"); and a surfeit of baseball metaphors ("brushback pitch," "unforced errors," "[expletive] home run"). Still, many political junkies will read it to see whether it provides any tidbits that would have been too explosive to disclose in mid-campaign. It does provide a few. It came as news to me, at least, to read Plouffe copping to (or should that be boasting of?) secretly conspiring with John Edwards's aides to corner Hillary Clinton into a fateful pledge to avoid Florida and Michigan -- states that scheduled early primaries in violation of Democratic party wishes and whose delegates she essentially had to forsake after winning big in those states. Plouffe also reveals how he successfully jawboned Adam Nagourney, the New York Times political writer, into altering how the paper counted primary delegates -- replacing a method favorable to Clinton with one favorable to Obama . Short of these nuggets, though, it's not clear to this Obama supporter what anyone not still drunk on 2008-vintage Kool-Aid would find worthwhile here. In Plouffe's cloying characterization, Obama appears as unfailingly decent, humble and self-possessed. He laughs self-deprecatingly at down moments that send his staff into despair. Always there with the perfect pep talk, he resembles no one so much as that other high-minded, commonsensical leader of an unruly bunch, TV's Mike Brady. " 'We rode into town together, we'll ride out together, win or lose,' he often said," writes Plouffe of his boss. When the staff screws up, Obama forgives but distills and imparts lessons; what he loves most "is meeting and spending time with our Iowa precinct captains," to whom he is generous and loyal. Besides the mythology of Obama, Plouffe also perpetuates the mythology of the campaign. He describes Obama as a long-shot from the get-go. But this wasn't really true. Polls notwithstanding -- and back in 2007 Plouffe himself wrote that early polls carry little significance -- in late 2006 Obama-mania was running so wild as to make the upcoming contest with Clinton look like a coin toss. Only her superior performance in 2007 propelled her to front-runner status, and even then, Plouffe concedes, her potential support faced firm limits. While it's fair to call Clinton the "establishment" candidate for the early rounds, the term was no longer apt by mid-January, once Obama won Iowa and nabbed gold-star endorsements from Ted Kennedy and others. Tellingly, Plouffe places no significance on the irony that more primary voters pulled the lever for Clinton than Obama, and that Obama needed those walking incarnations of the establishment -- the superdelegates -- to push him over the top. Plouffe also hammers the talking point that Obama took the high road throughout the campaign, even as the book's details undermine such claims. Plouffe admits, for example, that he viewed Obama's very slogan -- "Change You Can Believe In" -- as a sneaky way to insinuate that Hillary was untrustworthy. Certainly, Obama appealed to many people by acknowledging the complexity of some issues. But Plouffe's insistence on his team's surpassing righteousness is belied by, among other things, the glee that enlivens his account when he describes trying to "cause huge problems [for Clinton] in Iowa with blue-collar voters" or polishing an attack video about John McCain and the corrupt banker Charles Keating. Of course, at these moments, in Plouffe's telling, Obama is at the ready with a very Brady admonition: "I must tell you, I think this is a mistake. Now, in the debate when I suggest that McCain is engaging in the same old attack politics, he'll have an easy comeback: I'm doing the same thing. I'm really disappointed in you two for not handling this the right way." Surely it's time to retire the canard that Obama campaigned more nobly than his rivals. As in any presidential campaign, all the contenders fought hard; all went negative. Obama and Plouffe fought not cleaner but better, and went negative more deftly. Of course, when it's your own side, it rarely feels as though you're going negative. And at a certain point, insisting that you were more virtuous than the other guy stops even feeling like spin. bookworld@washpost.com
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Review
"...engaging, detailed and frequently illuminating account of the Obama presidential campaign..."
-Miami Herald

"...a gripping blockbuster of a book, manna for political aficianados and newcomers to elections alike, full of scrappy details, minute explanations of strategy, tales from the trail and candid assessments of mistakes made and lessons learned."
-Daily Kos

"After reading Plouffe's engaging, detailed and frequently illuminating account of the Obama presidential campaign, one can see how the campaign was lucky and good--indeed, often very, very good."
-San Francisco Chronicle

"[Plouffe] gives readers a visceral sense of the campaign from an insider's point of view...He offers acute assessments of the larger dynamics at play in the 2008 race, and he is frank about missteps that the Obama campaign made along the way...A detailed and revealing account."
-Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"Plouffe has written the most important political book of the year. It reads like a thriller...I flipped it open, read a few lines and was hooked...But it's not the insider look at the past that makes the book so important. It's what it shows us about the present--and the effect it could have on the future."
-Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post

About the Author
David Plouffe served as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's primary and general election victories in 2008. He was the architect of the strategy for both elections. Prior to running the Obama campaign, Plouffe served as a leading Democratic Party media consultant from 2001 to 2007, playing a key role in the election of U.S. senators, governors, mayors, and House members across the country.

Customer Reviews

Great Comprehensive Inside look on Historic Campaign.
David Plouffe was the man behind the machine that was the extraordinary Obama Campaign for President in 2008. This book goes deeper than any of the other books written so far (and there have been many) on this incredible campaign story. I couldn't put the book down last night after seeing it on my doorstep. Plouffe has anecdotes that no other author on the 2008 election has had yet and his access and inside story are not only exciting but incredibly interesting. If you are a democrat who supported Obama this is a must read to see how Plouffe and company energized a nation and spread the message of change. If you are a republican this is a must read to see how it was the Obama campaign was so easily able to convince indie voters and some republicans to support Barack Obama. This book is history, fresh history, and is a must read for anyone interested in politics.

An internal perspective of the largest grassroots campaign ever
The person who posted the first review of this book must not even know who David Plouffe is. He thinks he is just some author who wrote a book, hilarious. Perhaps this is what is wrong with the Republican party today. They just run their mouths with negative things to say with absolutely no facts or basis backing what they say. This could explain why people who identify themselves as Republicans are now into the teens.

About the book, if you followed the 2008 elections like I did this book will bring back memories with every turn of the page. Not only that but you get the perspective of David Plouffe who is a member of Obama's elite circle of trust. This is an excellent book and I have not been able to put it down since I started reading it this afternoon.

If you were constantly refreshing your web browser in 2008 waiting for the polls to be updated then you will be happy to know David Plouffe was doing the same exact thing. What took me by greatest surprise was all of my thoughts I had during the election were reiterated by David in this book. It truely brings back the day by day rollercoaster emotion that some of us went through. It is great to know that they were thinking and going through the same thing. For instance what was John McCain thinking when he conceded Michigan? Could they possibly not have the intelligence to realize they couldn't win without this state? Another example was his utter surprise when Hillary Clinton came on stage introduced as the next president of the United States. This after facing a loss that put her out of commission and there was no way possible for her to come back. Last thing I can think of is when the Clinton campaign wanted Obama to foot the bill for the attacks they had just thrown at them for the last two years. Could she be serious? I'm glad Plouffe had the insight to put this to rest before it became an issue.

The most down to earth part of this book was when Plouffe was talking about how he used to play an electoral college game as a kid and now he was playing it for real. Or when he stepped back to realize that he had just elected Barack Obama and how surreal this was. He describes looking over a lake and at that point you truely felt like you were standing right beside him.

I think my greatest surprise in this book was David's insight of the McCain and Clinton campaign. They both made mistakes that obviously cost them the election on many fronts. What surprises me the most is how these campaigns were ran so ineffective and to some level with sheer stupidity. One part particularly "Sarah ________ Palin", this had me laughing out of control. It is clear now had it not been for the other campaigns being so grossly mismanaged this fight probably would have been a lot more difficult. No offense David, all of us Obama supporters love you but you definitely got handed some lucky breaks.

Regardless of your political party this book offers perspective of Barack Obama's campaign manager. Whether or not you like it this campaign is the largest grassroots campaign ever, period. Only someone as ignorant as the person who published the first comment would not want access to information on how this was built from the ground up. Do yourself a favor and purchase the book today.

I must make one last defensive note, if you look at the numbers nobody can blame Obama for the problems Bush has created, So lets stop pretending any of our economic problems have anything to do with Obama.

Unemployment 2001-4.2% Jan'09-7.6% Now-9.8%
Budget 2001-$281Billion Surplus Jan'09-$1.2Trillion Deficit Now-1.4Trillion Deficit
Debt 2001-$5.7Trillion Jan'09-$10.6Trillion Now-$11.9Trillion

Trailblazing
Barack Obama's historic 2007-2008 campaign was the result of an amazing confluence of innovations rarely seen in American (or world's) politics. Much has been said and written about Obama, starting with his own two autobiographical books (Dreams of My Father, The Audacity of Hope), but the insiders radiography of the nuts and bolts that made his triumph possible is just starting with this book.

Obama's campaign was a dead serious, highly disciplined, relentless and, yes, innovative effort that took into account simple but oftenly ignored details on the mechanics of the Democratic primary and the general election, and David Plouffe's book can be read not only as a thrilling memoir of those two years. This is also a candid account of a trailblazing effort, a sort of 'how to' manual for conducting a succesful campaign in the new context of American politics. I'm sure that Republican political operatives, in stark contrast to some of the previsible one star reviewers here, are reading this book with careful attention. If not, they should.

Obama's triumph was not only the result of a charismatic and articulate candidate with a passion for words and the empathy to understand the needs and desires of the people. Behind the stage, far from the podium, a political operation was patiently constructing a web of volunteers who, knocking doors and using Internet and new media at its fullest, outmaneuvered Senator Clinton first, and after her, Senator McCain.

While Obama was inspiring people all across America with his "Yes we can" calling, David Plouffe (and David Axelrod) were conducting the down-to-earth side of this "unique mixture of idealism and pragmatism" (author's words in the Epilogue) and translating it into an organizational structure based in simple but essential electoral and mathematical considerations that guaranteed Obama's capacity to triumph in different scenarios. Make no mistakes about it: the pen is mightier than the sword, indeed, but behind Obama's powerful (s)words there was always a connection with the hard realities of a succesful presidential campaign. And that, in my opinion, is what David Plouffe's book is about.