By this I did not mean David Axelrod was born in Des Moines or Cedar Rapids. I meant he was one of a few dozen people who were with Obama from the very start. For nearly a year the Iowans crisscrossed the Hawkeye State, down twenty points in the polls. It was the political equivalent of living in caves, surviving on rainwater and grubs. Cold nights. Long odds. The Butter Cow at the state fair. These were the stories they told when times got tough, the way George Washington’s aides must have once regaled new conscripts with tales of Valley Forge.
I envied the Iowans’ unflappability. Surviving a near-death experience had put ice water in their veins. But left unchecked, their confidence could become delusion. I had seen it just two years earlier, when Democrats trailed badly in midterm polls. As conventional wisdom declared we were done for, Obamaworld veterans were summoned to lift our hopes. “Don’t forget, this is exactly what they told us before Iowa,” they promised. I understood their point. Sometimes pundits write you off because they can’t imagine anything beyond the status quo. But other times pundits write you off because you’re about to get your ass kicked. No one knew which kind of year 2012 would be.
This much was clear: for all his chest-thumping swagger in the Oval, POTUS had been wrong. Romney could beat him. And strangely, rather than worrying the president, this seemed to animate him. He was like a fighter who only gets going after that first taste of blood. Romney had landed a punishing blow. POTUS was through playing around.
He also seemed to reconsider his disdain for political theater. During the debate, Romney had proposed cutting funding for PBS. Now, President Obama pounced. “Elmo, you better make a run for it!” he cried in speeches. It was a silly line—something designed for TV cameras. But the president’s passion was genuine, and crowds responded. So did I. For all my disappointment with his first-debate performance, I had no doubt President Obama understood how much depended on this campaign.
I also knew that, of the seven billion people on earth, no one hated losing more than POTUS. His competitiveness was legendary, even among his Type A staff. On one occasion, Hope Hall goaded the president into doing an on-camera impression of Frank Underwood, Kevin Spacey’s character from House of Cards. When I asked her how she coerced the commander in chief, she smiled.
“Easy. I just told him I didn’t think he could do it.”
President Obama’s deep-seated hatred of second place served him well at the next debate. He came out swinging and, by a small yet decisive margin, was declared winner of the night. But then, just as we seemed to be regaining momentum, both sides hit pause.
It was time for the Al Smith Dinner.
ON AN OCTOBER NIGHT IN 1960, JOHN F. KENNEDY AND RICHARD Nixon ditched the campaign trail, donned white tie, and drove to the Waldorf Astoria hotel. There, they spent an evening telling jokes to wealthy New Yorkers. It’s a tradition that has repeated itself nearly every four years since.
The Al Smith Dinner raises millions for local charities, but a noble cause does nothing to diminish the evening’s strangeness. Imagine if, with five minutes left in the Super Bowl, the opposing quarterbacks rushed to the fifty-yard line to sing “I Will Always Love You” in a karaoke duet. Now imagine if, in addition to playing for opposing teams, each quarterback loathed everything the other stood for. Welcome to the Al Smith.
While Favs and Cody drafted more important speeches, I worked with our usual team of joke writers to assemble a draft. After months of intense campaigning, we had plenty to make fun of. Our opponent’s stiffness. His gaffes. The 47 percent video. My script referenced them all. I even asked our advance team to create a “binder full of women,” a prop inspired by one of Romney’s second-debate gaffes. But on the day of the speech, when Favs took the draft to the president, POTUS cut nearly every aggressive joke. There would be no binder on the podium that night. My mind instantly went to the days before the first debate. Was he pulling punches again?
But this time, I was wrong to second-guess the president’s instincts. As I watched the competing monologues from the comfort of Jacqui’s couch, my attention turned from the speakers to the audience. The room was a sea of strained smiles. A complicated code of etiquette writhed just below the surface. For the first time, I realized how risky my initial draft had been. To throw bombs would have been satisfying. But it also would have made the president seem desperate and cruel. POTUS was playing the long game. Where I had tried to win an evening, the president was trying to win a campaign.
So was Romney—and to my great disappointment, he was doing okay. Like the Iowans, he had come face-to-face with political mortality, and it stripped away his fear. “We’re down to the final months of the president’s term,” he said at the Al Smith Dinner, face beaming with a confident grin. The crowd, mostly white and wealthy, applauded with relish. A few people even whistled.
“He looked like a president,” wrote Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan not long after. “He looked like someone who’d just seen good internals.”
Perhaps he had. But while Peggy Noonan may not have known it, Obama had seen good internals, too. Where public polling found the race essentially even, Joel Benenson’s numbers showed us reclaiming our narrow lead. Even more important, with just a few weeks until Election Day, the pool of undecided voters was shrinking. The campaign wasn’t over. But the time for persuasion had passed.
In consequence, the number of remaining speeches began to dwindle. Favs and Cody would remain busy through Election Day, but as rhetorical handyman, my work was drying up. I wasn’t the only one. At DNC headquarters, cubicle after cubicle was abandoned as employees were sent into the field. In typical, militaristic campaign fashion, this is known as “being deployed.” With just weeks remaining until Election Day, and not much writing to do, I began to plan for a deployment of my own.
In late October, I completed my final speechwriting assignment of the 2012 election: a Q&A for Us Weekly. In “President Barack Obama: 25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me,” the commander in chief informed America that he was left-handed, that apples were his favorite healthy snack, and that he enjoyed both bodysurfing and shaved ice. If we lost, this would be my farewell address. Not long after sending in my draft to Favs and Cody, I dusted off my giant green backpack from college. Then I hit the road for Cleveland, my home for the campaign’s final days.
THE CAMPAIGN ASSIGNED ME TO A ROOM IN A VOLUNTEER’S HOUSE, a two-story white Cape Cod, and I arrived sometime shortly before midnight. The moment I rang the doorbell, I heard a deep, murderous growl from within. There was a crash of giant paws. Then the softer padding of slippers. My cheerful host, Norma, pried open the door.
I noticed she was middle-aged, with hair in curlers and a terry cloth robe. But the bulk of my attention was devoted to the beast behind her. A cross between a Great Dane and Satan, its giant blocky head raged with drool. I don’t remember the dog’s name. I do, however, remember the conversation between my host and me.
NORMA: Don’t worry. Monster loves people. Come on in!
MONSTER (translated): I’LL RIP YOUR ARMS OFF, YOU LOUSY BASTARD!
NORMA (laughing): Really? You’re scared of my puppy? I suppose I can put him in the bedroom.