Book Review: The Audacity to Win

It’s probably rare that someone would write a book review before actually completing the book.  But, I’m halfway through The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe and I’m pretty sure I know how it ends.  The book is subtitled The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory and it tells the story of Obama’s tumultuous campaign for the presidency.

Nine days from now will be the anniversary of the day I stood in the freezing cold with one million people on the national mall to witness and celebrate the inauguration of the first African American president.  He was called a savior.  He offered hope, change, a fresh perspective.

For most of us, that feeling is hard to recall.  The last year has been one political battle after another.  Tea parties touted overtly racist imagery and health care townhalls turned into screaming matches.  What happened to the idealism?

The Audacity to Win is like a time warp back to the honeymoon period, when the nation was first getting to know Barack Obama.  It lays out the race in such detail that just reading it, I get caught up all over again.  I just read the passage when Hillary got teary-eyed in New Hampshire.  Like Plouffe, I recall wondering if the emotion was real or politically motivated.  Like Plouffe, I was shocked when Clinton pulled out ahead in New Hampshire when every poll showed Obama would win.

In the wake of a year of governing in prose, Audacity is a refreshing trip back to the poetry of the campaign.  But, it’s also so much more.  Plouffe lays out the strategy of how they did it.  As the campaign manager, Plouffe was key in every important decision.  David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Plouffe were the “brain trust” of the campaign.  Fourteen months later, and a year into the Obama presidency, it’s hard to remember how shocking it was that a relatively unknown Senator from Illinois even received the Democratic nomination, much less was elected to the presidency.  But, Plouffe takes you back, way back to the first meetings of Obama considering a run.  He tells you about Michelle Obama’s concern for her family, about the hard life on the campaign trail and his own very personal experience being away from his family when a beloved pet died.  It is the real backstage pass.

The Obamas, Plouffe, Gibbs, and “Axe,” as Axelrod is called, are all leading roles in the book.  But, Plouffe also brings in relatively minor characters.  At one point, he highlights a young organizing chair in Iowa, practically going crazy before the Iowa caucuses.

Mitch, who was overseeing the organizational side of the Iowa campaign, walked in looking for Tewes.  Seeing him, I said into the phone to Barack, “Listen, it’s out of all of our hands now.  It’s in Mitch Stewart’s hands.  If his organization delivers what he says it will, we are going to win.”  I looked up to acknowledge Mitch’s presence in front of me.  “Oh, here he is,” I told Obama.  “Why don’t you say hi.”

When I told Mitch the candidate wanted to say hello, his face turned ash white.  Mitch was already a jumble of nerves, his hair was falling out, and he was sleeping two hours a night.  This about sent him over the edge.  He took the phone from me warily and put it to his ear. “Hello, sir?”  He listened a bit, and then said, “I keep looking over the numbers and I think we’ll get to where we need to be.  Or we’ll die trying.”

A moment later, Mitch hung up and gave me back the phone.  “I think I am going to throw up,” he said.

Plouffe also tells the stories of people he met on the trail, from the first timers to the old hats.  This book, much like the campaign, highlights the diverse and broad coalition assembled by Obama that allowed him to win.

Reading Audacity is also giving me a better sense of our president.  How does he handle his subordinates?  Does he crack under pressure?  How much of the campaign was him and how much was advisers?  I’m reassured by the portrayal Plouffe paints of a calm and thoughtful man in the face of difficult decisions.  But, Obama knew when to crack down.  When his campaign responded to a Clinton-camp criticism with a counter attack while Obama was unreachable on an airplane, he reacted.

But When Obama landed he was furious.

“Can I not get on an airplane anymore without you guys launching cruise missiles?” he asked the three of us [Plouffe, Axelrod, Gibbs] with exasperation over speakerphone.  “I understand your instinct.  But going the Lincoln Bedroom route just gets playing in the muck, where they are more comfortable than we are.  Run this stuff by me from now on, at least until we get in stride in terms of tone.”

From what I can gather from the book, most of the campaign was Obama.  But, he absolutely had the best and the brightest working for him.  Plouffe emphasizes that for them to win, they had to do everything right.  And they did.

Whether you know every facet of the 2008 election or you missed the whole thing, The Audacity to Win is a fascinating read that offers a new, inside perspective of the events that changed history.

A Piece of Cuba Right Here in Illinois

Analysis…

Yesterday President Obama announced that a prison in his home state of Illinois will house detainees from the Guantanamo detention center.   Deciding where to send these prisoners is a major step in closing Guantanamo and making good on a campaign pledge of Obama’s to close the prison within the first year of his presidency.  Bringing the prisoners to the states has met both acceptance and fervent resistance.

The Hill | “I support the transfer of inmates to the Thomson Correctional Center, and I have full confidence that the facility will hold these terrorism suspects safely and securely,” Burris said in a statement.

Burris, like other Democrats, cited the plan as an opportunity to create jobs in a state that has 11 percent unemployment. Under the proposal, a limited amount of detainees would be housed at the little-used Thompson Correctional Facility in the northwestern part of the state.

Pro Publica | Unmentioned today was yet another problematic category of detainees: Those who have had their habeas cases granted by U.S. judges, but who remain in custody [7] at Guantanamo. As you can see from our interactive chart [8], which tracks the 40 detainees who have had their habeas cases decided by U.S. courts, 10 detainees currently fall into that category, some of whom were ordered released over 14 months ago.

We asked the White House what it plans to do with those detainees whose habeas cases have been granted but are still waiting to be released. A spokeswoman there declined to comment.

Think Progress | Two months ago, Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) voted on a homeland security bill that contained a provision that authorized the transferring of prisoners out of Guantanamo Bay. Now that he’s running for Senate and trying to court the right-wing base, Kirk is staking a different position. Commenting on Fox News today about the Obama administration’s announcement, Kirk said he would instead opt to keep Gitmo open:

ACLU | “The creation of a ‘Gitmo North’ in Illinois is hardly a meaningful step forward. Shutting down Guantánamo will be nothing more than a symbolic gesture if we continue its lawless policies onshore.

“Alarmingly, all indications are that the administration plans to continue its predecessor’s policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial for some detainees, with only a change of location. Such a policy is completely at odds with our democratic commitment to due process and human rights whether it’s occurring in Cuba or in Illinois. In fact, while the Obama administration inherited the Guantánamo debacle, this current move is its own affirmative adoption of those policies. It is unimaginable that the Obama administration is using the same justification as the Bush administration used to undercut centuries of legal jurisprudence and the principle of innocent until proven guilty and the right to confront one’s accusers.

Illinois Review | Members of various state-wide organizations who oppose the use of Thomson Prison for the housing of Guantanamo Bay detainees are staging a protest rally to run in conjunction with a public hearing conducted by the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability regarding the sale of the prison to the federal government.

On the Web…

Rethinking Work: The US Military as Labor | Global Comment

A war president accepted the Nobel Peace Prize this week and with that acceptance laid out a defense of war as foreign policy. It is not my point in this piece to argue Barack Obama’s position on war. Instead, I want to take some time to think about the people who fight wars with little ability to nitpick the causes and justifications thereof. Soldiers. Men and women who fight and die in wars around the world.

Specifically, since I’ve been thinking about and writing about work, I want to talk about the military in a way it’s rarely mentioned: as labor. As a job.

The Shame of Unemployment | Change.org

As food stamp use grows, the stigma associated with their use is allegedly falling. As we continue to see widespread unemployment, foreclosures, and reliance on private and public assistance well into 2010, we must stick to the messaging that we are all in this together, that we have nothing to be ashamed of, and that we can only reshape and recapture the “American Dream” by reforming the political and economic causes that got us to this moment. Of course, without action, this is just a lot of empty rhetoric.

Octopus is First Invertibrate to Use Tools, Turning a Coconut Into a Mobile Home | Treehugger

Scientists have found an octopus that is using a coconut shell as it’s own shell. It’s a brilliant mobile home idea. It carries the shell along with it – squatting it’s body inside, with it’s legs hanging over so it can walk along the ocean floor. When it gets to a spot that looks like a nice place to camp, it covers itself with the shell. Check out a video of the octopus in action.

The Story of the Shopping Cart | Sociological Images

So there you have it: labor de-skilling + marketing – stigma of feminine association + Baby Boom + profits based on increased purchasing of ever-cheaper stuff = the modern shopping cart!

Peace Price

Analysis…

Thursday President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.  Winning the Prize has earned Obama much criticism from every angle.  Voices  from both the left and the right  have said that Obama has not yet earned the prize.  Others point to prizes given in anticipation of great work, such as the one awarded to Archbishop Desmond Tutu before apartheid had fallen in South Africa.  In all the murky nuance of criticism and support, one thing is clear, for Obama the prize has a price. 

Washington Post | The traditional Nobel Peace Prize lecture, given every year at Oslo’s modernist City Hall, does not usually include such words as: “I’m responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed.”

President Obama accepted the Nobel for peacemaking by delivering an eloquent, often grim treatise on the nature and necessity of warfare. Anyone who doubts his commitment to the war in Afghanistan, which he has escalated with an “extended surge” of 30,000 new U.S. troops, should read a transcript of the Oslo speech. Hawks who suspected — and doves who hoped — that Obama was a secret pacifist will see that although he did not set out to be a “war president,” he has accepted his fate.

The Hill | President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech on Thursday “sounded really familiar,” said former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

Palin said approved of Obama’s speech in Oslo, where he described the concept of a “just war” in his troop surge strategy for Afghanistan, saying he mirrored her own thoughts on the use of force.

“I liked what he said, in fact, I thumbed through my book quickly this morning and said, ‘Wow, that sounded really familiar!’ because I talked in my book too about the fallen nature of man and how war is necessary at times,” Palin told USA Today in an interview.

Slate | Yes, Obama’s speech is filled with ambiguities, dilemmas, and contradictions. More to the point, it explicitly grapples with them. If there is a single theme to the speech, it’s that a philosopher-statesman of our time (which is what Obama is trying to be) must recognize and grapple with both universal principles and contingent realities, with our ambitions and our limits, with—as Martin Luther King Jr. put it in his Nobel lecture (and which Obama quoted today)—the “is-ness of man’s present nature” and the “ought-ness that forever confronts him.” 

Change.org | My reservations about the speech, and about Rice’s remarks at the Holocaust Museum tonight, are due to the fact that this Obama Doctrine is, indeed, still in development. Progress on clarity of purpose is not yet matched by action, leaving the principles established by the president feeling out of sync with reality. In his speech, Obama exalted human rights as a corner stone of peace, yet earlier this week the State Department issued a belated and rather tepid response to a brutal crackdown on protestors in Khartoum, following nearly a year with very little reaction to the repeated human rights violations by the authoritarian regime.

News…

The God Particle May Be Somewhere Else | Entangled States

There are so new indications that the Higgs particle (the “God particle“) may not be found where we are looking with the Large Hadron Collider. A team of researchers have been looking over a collection of data that indirectly puts bounds on the mass of the top quark has been able to use that data to make some predictions about the mass of the Higgs.

A Recent History of Things That Have Been Thrown at Political Figures | Daily Intel

Last week, Sarah Palin was signing copies of her highly successful and accurate book when she suddenly became the intended target of two airborne tomatoes — the latest addition to a proud and noble tradition of throwing things at political figures we don’t like. It’s an act of defiance that presidents, pundits, mayors, governors, and Ralph Nader alike have been unable to escape. We’ve put together a guide to the most notable incidents involving American politicos over the past decade or so, some of which — thankfully, because they’re usually hilarious — were captured on video for posterity.

Pastor Rick Warren Denounces Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill | Change.org

Faced with a bill in Uganda that would execute certain members of the country’s LGBT population, sentence many others to lifetime jail terms, and imprison straight advocates for LGBT rights, Pastor Rick Warren has finally spoken up with a loud and clear message: Uganda, don’t pass the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009.

End-in-sight-istan?

Analysis…

Tuesday night, President Obama spoke at West Point, detailing his future strategy for the War in Afghanistan.  The speech included a summary of events leading us to this place, the president’s plan, an account of the president’s difficulty in making this decision, and a refutation of potential criticisms of his plan.  The substance of his strategy includes increasing our forces by 30,000 troops starting in 2010 with the intention of beginning to withdraw them in the summer of 2011.   The reactions to the speech have been varied.   

FiveThirtyEight | What you have here, in both policy and political gambits, is the equivalent “surge” for Obama in Afghanistan to what Bush did with his surge in Iraq. I suppose violence is down in Iraq post-surge, but the long-term situation there isn’t going to be any better as a result, is it? And although Obama’s less-in-Iraq-means-more-for-Afghanistan argument is better than a more-in-both-countries further over-extension of our military and treasury, scaling back in Iraq is not in by itselfa rationale for ramping up in Afghanistan. Failure at a lower cost-per-fatality, cost-per-casualty, cost-per-dollar-spent investment is still a bad return. What matters is whether this counterinsurgency strategy really can work. I’m still not sure it will, and given that the president’s Afghan approval numbers are lower than his overall approval numbers, I wonder how many Americans believe it will work.

Alternet | There remains substantial Democratic discomfort with Obama’s plan to surge more than 30,000 additional troops into what — despite the talk of an exit strategy — is sounding more and more like an endless, and very probably pointless, war of whim. One hundred members of the House, the vast majority of them Democrats, have now sponsored Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern’s call for the development of a formal plan to bring the troops home. In the Senate, Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold and Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders make no secret of the fact that they believe the president is making a mistake, as does Obey, author of the “fool’s errand” characterization.

The Huffington Post | After the Bush years of outright lies and systematic deception, we now have Obama plumbing new depths as he tortures the very language itself. 1984here we are. Escalation is withdrawal; establishing a protectorate wherein the United States runs the government behind a nominal Afghan façade is “not nation-building;” a facsimile of a British style native state under the Raj is transmuted into self-determination.

FP Passport | If anything, the cautious tone of this speech revealed a president far from enthusiastic about his strategy. You can expect commentators to suggest that the president’s heart isn’t in the fight. But I expect that the mindset Obama projected — deeply ambivalent about the options he’s faced with but resigned to what he believes is a necessity — will resonate with many viewers much more than a guns-blazing call-to-arms would have. 

News…

Puerto Rico - First Recorded Hate Crime Murder? | Questioning Transphobia

Which makes me wonder if the victim may have been a transgender woman, despite the majority of the reports I’ve read referring to a “gay teen”and using male pronouns and a name which may well have been the name in hir legal documentation, but perhaps may not have been the name ze always went by. Regardless, it’s hard not to see it as a blatant and cynical attempt by the accused to lay the foundations for either a gay panic or trans panic defense at his trial.

No Minarets, We’re Swiss | Get Religion

Government leaders said the ban was not a rejection of Muslims, their faith or their culture. It was beyond the ability of Timesreporters Nick Cumming-Bruce (in Geneva) and Steven Erlanger (in Paris) to see how many people believed this, but the Muslims quoted by the reporters were understandably skeptical.

Deer Swims 2,000 Yards Across Hudson River | Daily Intel

Jealous of the attention heaped upon Ilya the Manatee, a deer from New Jersey made a plea for some fawning media coverage of his own today by swimming some 2,000 yards across the Hudson River. The 10-point buck jumped into the water sometime after being spotted at an intersection in Jersey City. A few hours later a police boat found him running along the rocky edge of Governors Island, shot him with a tranquilizer and transported him to a nature preserve on Staten Island. Now he’s among friends, and next time he wants to go for a swim he won’t have to go stag.

Back 2 School Special

Analyisis…

President Obama is airing a back-to-school special today, in which he will express the importance of studying, setting goals and washing your hands.  The video is intended for all age groups and the full text is available online.  However, some parents and teachers are worried that the video contains underlying political tones intended to manipulate your children’s thoughts and spread liberal propaganda.  The video has become so controversial that some districts have allowed individual teachers, parents and students to decide whether or not they watch the Webcast.  Here, bloggers assess the context of the video and comment upon conservative arguments pertaining to Obama sharing his “socialist ideology” with our kids.

Marc Ambinder @TheAtlantic /  I’ve found all the naughty socialist indoctrination in the advance text of the president’s education speech [Tuesday], and I’ve cut it out for you and I annotated it, totally out of context.  In bold, how an Obama hater —  someone who sincerely believes that Obama is a malevolent force — might interpret the excerpts.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.
Liberals out there — you see? You see? What are the president’s priorities? He’s encouraging rebellion against authority. He’s encouraging individual exploration. He’s encouraging everyone to become community organizers like himself.  Where’s the value of hard work? Of discipline? Or doing homework every night?

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. Not when you’re a president, it’s not.

Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.
Another hidden appeal to ObamaNation. What an abomination.

OrlandoWeekly /  On Aug. 26, the Secretary of Education sent the following letter to school principals across the nation:

Dear Principal:
In a recent interview with student reporter, Damon Weaver, President Obama announced that on September 8 — the first day of school for many children across America — he will deliver a national address directly to students on the importance of education. The President will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning. He will also call for a shared responsibility and commitment on the part of students, parents and educators to ensure that every child in every school receives the best education possible so they can compete in the global economy for good jobs and live rewarding and productive lives as American citizens.

And here is Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer’s response:
“As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama’s socialist ideology. The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power.”
“While I support educating our children to respect both the office of the American President and the value of community service, I do not support using our children as tools to spread liberal propaganda. The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President’s agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President’s initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates.”

Obama’s going to tell kids to study hard, stay in school, and yada yada yada – controversial shit, there – and Greer decides that instead he’s going to give a five minute speech that will force them all to join their local communist party or something? Seriously?

Huffington Post /  Greer goes on to complain about “holiday parties” and prayer in school, and he refers to the President as “Pied Piper Obama.” Meanwhile, I’m trying to imagine how a brief speech of routine paeans to the importance of education is going to pull off inculcating the nation’s schoolchildren on the virtues of state-run auto companies, and the like. It seems to me that three days after this speech is given, most everyone is going to forget about it, the children fastest of all.

Wonkette /  Do you know where your child is? No, not right now. No don’t worry, you don’t have to know that. But know this: On September 8th, President Barack Obama will be INDOCTRINATING your children with well wishes and vague pleasantries about doing their best and working hard. He will speak to them, via video, which our nation’s teachers will turn on after an estimated three to five minutes fiddling with the TV. But America’s school children want—nay, need—to know just this one thing: Will this be the sort of activity that cuts into their class time, or do they just have to make it up at the end of the day? The support of an entire generation depends on this crucial question.
But many conservative adults are more concerned with how much socialism, rounded to the nearest hundred, will Obama be exposing the young people to?
“The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power,” Chairman Jim Greer said in a press release.
Added conservative talk show host Tammy Bruce, in a Twitter feed: “Make September 8 Parentally Approved Skip Day. You are your child’s moral tutor, not that shady lawyer from Chicago.” And conservative author Michelle Malkin said the lesson plans have a “heavy activist bent.”

TheModerate Voice /  So. The White House has released the prepared text for Obama’s speech to the nation’s students tomorrow.
It’s packed full of what I consider to be classic values that are held very dearly by pretty much every parent I know. It talks about taking responsibility, and working hard, and having goals that take effort, and that there’s no excuse for not trying.
It says, basically, what the White House said it would say all along… and I find myself truly curious about something.
If you are one of those parents who called your child’s school in a panic about the dangerous subliminal socialist messaging, or told your kids that you didn’t want them to hear this president’s terrible ideas, I have a question for you: How do you plan to backtrack that?

Polimom /  Folks, that speech promotes values in which I, as a parent, am heavily invested. Over the past week, though, quite a lot of folks have been contacting schools, calling into programs, and/or writing online that they do not want their Janey or Johnny to hear this speech.
If you are one of those parents — and especially if you have already derailed the speech at your school, or have told your kids that you don’t want them to hear it, then this question is for you:
How do you plan to tell Janey or Johnny that you don’t agree with the speech?
Don’t answer til you’ve read it, and don’t come back at me about that one line in the suggested lesson plan. Not only was it never mandatory, they revised it in the plans days ago.
I’m seriously curious about this. How are you going to explain why you don’t want them to hear the speech? Surely you agree with the message in it.
Seriously. Those of you who were going off the deep end about indoctrination, and subliminal messaging, and various other monsters in the closet: Do you think maybe there was just a tad bit of overreaction?

News…

• Many presidents spoke in schools (Read more).
• Infections outside the brain speed memory loss (Read more).
• Touch me.  The future of human computer interactions (Read more).
• Unemployment hits 26-year high (Read more).