Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America (2 page)

BOOK: Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
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The People

October 15, 2011

I
t is a bright autumn weekend in Denver. I am in Colorado to talk with people about the country and the candidates. Colorado seems an ideal place to stop as the campaign year approaches. It symbolizes the changing electoral map and the emergence of the Rocky Mountains as a pivotal region in the upcoming election. Barack Obama claimed his nomination in Denver in August 2008, and the voters repaid the favor by giving him a handsome victory that November. But three years into his presidency, Obama’s grip on the state is anything but firm. Colorado also is a good place to examine the possibilities and liabilities of the Republican Party. In 2010, Republicans squandered opportunities to pick up a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion because of fallout from candidates closely tied to the Tea Party. Finally, Colorado is a laboratory in which to examine close up the shifting demographics and changing cultural attitudes that are altering American politics in real time.

What I hear underscores the dissatisfaction that forms the backdrop of the political year ahead. People see and feel an economy that is still inflicting pain on them and their families and friends. Anger with politics is palpable. People see Washington as a swamp of bickering and gridlock. When I ask one couple—a retired pharmacist and a retired teacher—about Washington, it is as if a huge spigot has been opened wide. Their frustrations spew forth. Republicans and Democrats are going down separate roads that never intersect, the husband tells me. “And if there’s a bridge between them,” his wife says with evident disgust, “they’ll burn it.” A retired electrician warns that public patience is limited. “People are angry and frustrated and have no focal point,” he says. “You think the Arab Spring can’t happen here? Think again.” Another man points to the Occupy Wall Street protests that are then popping up in many cities. “It’s kind of like a volcanic gurgle,” he says. “The mountain hasn’t exploded, but it’s rumbling.”

Onetime supporters of the president recognize the size of the problems he
inherited and the opposition he faces and sympathize. But they wonder if he can be reelected. Some aren’t sure he deserves to win. One woman who had backed him has lost faith in his leadership. “I don’t think he knows how to bring people together,” she says. But the voters here are not yet impressed with what they see in the Republican Party. A few say Mitt Romney could be a presentable candidate. Beyond that there is little from which to choose. “That is one of the problems of the Republican Party,” one woman tells me. “There is no one who is a strong leader who can gain support and bring things back together.”

My day in Colorado helps frame the questions that are at the heart of the 2012 election:

  • First, how much do frustrations with the slowly recovering economy threaten the president’s reelection? This is the threshold issue of the campaign. Is the economy recovering just fast enough to save the president, or is the uneven pace deadly to his chances?
  • Second, will the anger that is so evident manifest itself in some direct way? Will it strike against incumbents of both parties, or of just one party, as it had in 2006, 2008, and 2010? Will it give rise to a third-party candidate, like Ross Perot in 1992, who somehow harnesses those frustrations to affect the outcome?
  • Third, how will perceptions of the candidates’ personal traits affect the outcome? How much will character and personality override other issues?
  • Fourth, will polarization outweigh almost everything else? Are voters so locked into their separate camps that other factors become secondary to the cause of advancing the interests of red or blue America?
  • Finally, can or will the election resolve any of the fundamental issues before the country? Will Campaign 2012 do anything to improve the prospects for governing in 2013 and beyond?
BOOK ONE

THE PIVOT

CHAPTER 1

On the Cusp of History

I
t ended where it began. On the evening of November 5, 2012, twenty thousand people lined the streets of the East Village section of downtown Des Moines. The golden dome atop the Iowa Capitol building stood in the background, brilliantly illuminated against the black sky. From the Capitol to the Des Moines River, the streets were cordoned off and had been for days, awaiting the president’s arrival. Behind the stage sat the old headquarters from the first campaign—a squat one-story building that was now a church. For many in the traveling party, including the president, it was still familiar ground. Some of them could recall exactly where people sat four years earlier as they made the final phone calls to supporters during the caucuses in 2008. They remembered too their nervousness as they awaited the returns from precincts across the state and their elation when he had finally won on that frigid January night. It had all happened so fast, and now, even more quickly, they were at the end. The verdict would come the next day from the voters.

The whole team was there: David Axelrod, David Plouffe, and Robert Gibbs, the trio of advisers who led the first campaign; speechwriter Jon Favreau and his 2008 writing partner Ben Rhodes, now deputy national security adviser. Friends Marty Nesbitt and Mike Ramos were along for the ride. So too was Valerie Jarrett, the president’s White House confidante and one of his and the First Lady’s closest friends. Reggie Love, the president’s irrepressible body man who was now off on other pursuits, had come back too. Jen Psaki, who had logged almost every mile with Obama in 2008 and spent time in the White House, was back as traveling campaign spokeswoman. Jay Carney had seen the 2008 campaign from the outside as
Time
’s Washington bureau chief. Now he too was in the staff cabin on Air Force One as White House press secretary. Trip director Marvin Nicholson, who was also the president’s golfing buddy, tried to keep the operation moving to schedule. It was like the end of a long-running television series in which all the characters from previous seasons had come back to make cameo appearances, Axelrod said. The whole family was back together one last time.

It was easy to forget how far Obama had come in such a short time, and how dramatic the ascent had been. He had been on the national stage barely eight years, beginning with that night in Boston in 2004 when as a little-known Illinois state senator he gave a keynote address that electrified the Democratic convention of John Kerry. Soon he became a vessel for the hopes and dreams of millions of Americans, who had rallied behind him as he began an improbable quest for the White House. That first election made history and brought almost two million people to the Washington Mall for his historic inauguration day. He came to office amid great expectations and facing enormous problems. His presidency had been rocky—his aides called it a roller-coaster ride, which was a charitable way to put it—as he dealt with the deepest recession since the Great Depression, battled a Republican Party unified in its opposition to almost everything he proposed, and suffered a historic midterm election defeat just two years after he stood in Chicago’s Grant Park to claim the presidency. He was confident as he approached election day 2012—he was never one to lack for self-confidence about anything. But those around him could also sense the weight of the moment bearing down on him. He had told someone that he believed that everything—everything—about his presidency was on the line with this election: how he would be viewed by history, his legacy, his accomplishments, and the future of the country. He wasn’t nervous so much as he was clear-eyed about the enormity of the moment and the consequences of defeat.

The final swing had begun on Sunday, November 4, when he left the White House for a flight to New Hampshire. Bill Clinton joined him. The president and former president, tense rivals during those 2008 primaries between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, were now allies. They had campaigned together the night before in Virginia and were to do one last joint rally before splitting off in separate directions for the final day and a half of campaigning. On the half-hour ride from the Manchester airport to Concord, Plouffe and Axelrod joined them in the president’s limousine. Clinton was delighted to be back in the state that had saved his candidacy during the primaries in 1992 and resurrected his wife’s ultimately failed candidacy in 2008. “I love New Hampshire,” he exclaimed. New Hampshire summoned different memories for Obama’s team. They all remembered the pain of losing the primary there to Hillary Clinton when everyone believed Obama was a sure winner. Plouffe wouldn’t say he exactly hated the state, so he said, “We like New Hampshire, but we like Iowa a little bit more.” From New Hampshire, Obama had flown south to Florida and then back to the most contested of all the battlegrounds, Ohio, for an evening rally with Stevie Wonder at the University of Cincinnati. Hecklers interrupted him, one of them an anti-abortion demonstrator who gripped the
railing of the balcony as police took him away. After the rally, the traveling press corps broke off from the presidential party and flew on to Madison, Wisconsin. But Obama had one more stop, a late-night rally in Aurora, Colorado. By the time he got to his hotel in Madison, it was after 3 a.m.

If Sunday was a grueling march across the country and back, Monday was a day of nostalgia and emotions, for the president and all those with him. Racing through the president’s mind, Axelrod believed, was the improbable journey he had been on and the finality of knowing that whatever came the next day, this chapter was ending. On one flight during the day, Obama said to Axelrod, Plouffe, and Gibbs, Listen, I remember the night of [the 2008 primary in] New Hampshire, you three knocking on my door and pulling me out of dinner with my wife to tell me that we had lost. If you show up at my door tomorrow night, just remember I’m still going to be president for two more months. Everybody had a good laugh at that, and Axelrod said, “No problem, Mr. President, we already talked about this. If someone is knocking, it’s going to be [campaign manager Jim] Messina.”

Bruce Springsteen was also with him that day. On the trip from Madison to the president’s second stop of the day in Columbus, Ohio, Springsteen rode on Air Force One. During the flight, the president placed a call to New Jersey’s Chris Christie. The Republican governor and the Democratic president had bonded in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the storm that had devastated parts of the East Coast a week earlier. Republicans were dismayed by what they saw as Christie’s excessive praise for the president, given the closeness of the election. Christie was a huge fan of Springsteen, but it was an unrequited love. Obama decided to have some fun with his new friend the governor. Aboard Air Force One, Obama’s companions thought Christie didn’t recognize Springsteen’s voice. Nonsense, Christie said later—he instantly knew who Obama had on the line. “[Obama] says to me, ‘You know, in a crisis like we’re going through, you know the only thing that’s better than one guy from Jersey?’ I said, ‘No.’ He goes, ‘Two guys from Jersey.’ Then I hear, ‘Hey, Gov, we meet in the wildest places, don’t we?’ I said to him, ‘Are you on Air Force One?’ He said to me, ‘It is unbelievable, it is unbelievable, yes, I’m on Air Force One,’ and you could just tell that Springsteen was, like, beside himself happy that he was on Air Force One, just thrilled.”

Before his rally in Columbus, Obama did a round of satellite television interviews into other battleground states, his eye cocked at times to a screen where he could see Springsteen and Jay-Z performing in the arena. After his speech, he and his team had dinner together and told stories. Before leaving Columbus, Obama stopped by one of the campaign offices to greet the volunteers. One of the field organizers asked for a photo with the president. “We’re
gonna do pictures with everybody,” Obama said, in a tone that suggested he thought the staffer was thinking too much about himself. “You’re a field organizer. You gotta be looking out for your volunteers.” Then they were off to Iowa for the last rally he would ever do as a candidate for office.

Air Force One landed at the Des Moines airport at 8:58 p.m., central time. The First Lady’s plane arrived moments later. As her aircraft taxied to a stop, the president’s motorcade pulled up alongside. Obama got out of his limousine and waited at the bottom of the stairs to greet her. He had told her during the final stretch that if he got a second term, he was determined to get out of Washington more. It was, he told her, good for his soul. Together they rode the short distance into town and before going onstage toured the old campaign offices. It was a cold night—forty degrees—but felt colder, and the president wore his signature black jacket over a sweater. He seemed impervious to the night air. It was the last time he would ask anyone to vote for him, and he was in no hurry. He had prepared his riffs, including the story of his “Fired up, ready to go!” call-and-response chant from 2008. His staff had invited Edith Childs, the Greenwood County, South Carolina, councilwoman who had given birth to “Fired up, ready to go!” to join him onstage for the last rally. No, she said, I have too many doors to knock on in North Carolina to take time out for a trip to Iowa. That’s what this is all about, he told those on the flight. She didn’t want to ride on Air Force One. She didn’t want to come to a rally. She’s busy trying to get out the vote in North Carolina. It reinforced for Obama everything he believed his campaign should be about.

Springsteen played “No Surrender” and joked about Obama’s musical aspirations. The president had crooned a couple of bars of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” at a January 2012 fund-raiser, and the video quickly went viral. Then Springsteen turned serious. He said he had spent his life measuring the distance between the American dream and American reality. “Our vote tomorrow is the one undeniable way we get to determine the distance in that equation,” he said. He introduced Michelle Obama, who spoke briefly about what was at stake, and then it was the president’s moment. “I’ve come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,” he said. “I came back to ask you to help us finish what we’ve started. Because this is where our movement for change began. Right here. Right here.” He mentioned the headquarters behind him. “This was where some of the first young people who joined our campaign set up shop, willing to work for little pay and less sleep because they believed that people who love their country can change it. This was where so many of you who shared that belief came to help. When the heat didn’t work for the first week or so, some of you brought hats and gloves for the staff. These poor kids, they weren’t prepared. When the walls inside were bare, one of you painted a mural to lift everybody’s
spirits. When we had a steak fry to march to,
*
when we had a J-J Dinner [Jefferson-Jackson Dinner] to fire up”—the Iowans began to applaud at the memory of those touchstones of the first campaign—“you brought your neighbors and you made homemade signs. When we had calls to make, teachers and nurses showed up after work—already bone tired but staying anyway, late into the night.” And then his voice grew huskier and there was a catch in his throat and his eyes began to glisten slightly.
Washington Post
photographer Nikki Kahn could see it and moved for a better angle. The famously cool president, the unflappable, no-drama politician, was overcome by the moment. He gently wiped the corner of his left eye. “And you welcomed me and Michelle into your homes. And you picked us up when we needed a lift. And your faces gave me new hope for this country’s future, and your stories filled me with resolve to fight for you every single day I set foot in the Oval Office. You inspired us.” A tear had rolled down his cheek and he wiped his eye again. “You took this campaign and you made it your own. And you organized yourselves, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, county by county, starting a movement that spread across the country”—the crowd began to applaud—“a movement made up of young and old, and rich and poor, and black and white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, Democrats, Republicans, who believe we’ve got something to contribute, that we all deserve a shot at our own American dream.” His voice was strong now, but his eyes gave away the emotions inside him and he wiped away a tear once more. “And when the cynics said we couldn’t, we said, ‘Yes we can!’” Deafening applause erupted on the streets of Des Moines.

When he finished speaking, it was after 10:30 p.m. and he was exhausted, but he lingered. He worked the rope line for another thirty minutes, back and forth three times by the count of one of his advisers, who remembered because it was so unusual. On the short flight back to Chicago, Obama called Jim Messina, the campaign manager, who was at headquarters. “I’m proud of what you built,” he said, prompting Messina to break down. Messina thought the candidate sounded at peace. Air Force One was back in Chicago in less than an hour, and by 1 a.m. the president was at his home in Hyde Park, now to wait as he looked to election day rituals to pass the time. The first votes had already been recorded in New Hampshire: Tiny Dixville Notch’s ten voters had split five-five. In nearby Hart’s Location, Obama had won by twenty-three to just nine for Romney.

•   •   •

Contrary to Obama’s 2004 convention speech in Boston, there were two Americas that day, as there had been throughout Obama’s presidency and back before that. Red and blue America lived in different worlds and saw events through separate prisms and got their information from separate sources. Though Obama and Mitt Romney were crisscrossing through the same states, they were cocooned in these separate compartments. If anything, the enthusiasm in Romney’s world was even greater at that moment than in Obama’s. Romney’s schedule called for him to end his campaign in New Hampshire, the site of his announcement speech and the first big victory of the 2012 race. He was returning to friendly ground for his final rally, just as the president had for his. The two rivals were operating on the same clock. Moments after Obama landed in Des Moines on election eve, Romney’s charter touched down in Manchester. At least twelve thousand people waited for him inside the Verizon Wireless Arena, packed together from the stadium floor to the upper-tier seats. They were wild with enthusiasm, giddy at the prospect of turning Obama into a one-term president. They got an extra energy shot from Kid Rock, whose song “Born Free” had become the Romney campaign anthem. Mitt and Ann Romney were supposed to wait in a holding room during Kid Rock’s short set but insisted they wanted to see it like everyone else. They were taken to one of the suites and found a perch on a balcony from which to watch. The rapper-rocker put on a dazzling laser light show, which ended with him singing from atop a piano adorned with a bumper sticker that read, “Bad Ass.” No one found anything incongruous about the juxtaposition of the bawdy musician and the straitlaced candidate.

BOOK: Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America
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