THE CUYAHOGA COUNTY DEMOCRATS HELD THEIR WATCH PARTY AT a DoubleTree in downtown Cleveland, and Jacqui and I arrived just as the first few states were being called. The first few were unsurprising: Vermont blue, Kentucky red, and so on.
Soon, however, we allowed ourselves to hope. Early in the night, CNN projected Obama would win Pennsylvania, a state where Romney had made a last-minute push. Then we won New Hampshire, another potential tipping point. North Carolina went to our opponents, but we took Wisconsin, exactly as Joel Benenson’s internals predicted. The nervous chatter in the DoubleTree was replaced with a prayerful silence. If Ohio slid into Obama’s column, it would all be over.
Ever since the first debate, I had stubbornly refused to think about winning. But now, eyes glued to a TV screen in anticipation, I granted myself the tiniest moment to reflect. Unemployment was near 8 percent. Obamacare wasn’t popular. Despite his once-in-a-generation talent, our candidate had belly-flopped on his campaign’s biggest night. And yet, despite everything, we stood on the brink of a second term. What better vindication of our efforts could there be?
Ding-dong-thunk-thunk-THUNK-THUNK-ding-dong.
A series of metallic sounds, half chiming, half clanging, echoed through the ballroom. Wolf Blitzer had a projection to make. “CNN projects that Barack Obama . . .” he said. But no one waited for him to finish. Beneath a picture of POTUS were the words I had scarcely allowed myself to imagine.
* * *
REELECTED PRESIDENT
* * *
The room exploded. It wasn’t a cheer. It wasn’t a scream. It was a supernova of relief. I threw my hands in the air. Jacqui turned toward me, laughing uncontrollably, and wrapped me in a hug. The noise faded just enough to hear Wolf Blitzer continue.
“. . . because we project he will carry the state of Ohio.”
The ballroom erupted all over again. “Yes we can! Yes we can!”
And then, spontaneously, our time-honored chant evolved into something I had never heard before. “Yes we did! Yes we did!”
I was almost too tired to cry. I was almost too happy to speak.
Only now, with victory in hand, did I realize that part of me thought this day would never come. Anything can happen once, even electing a progressive black man named Barack Hussein Obama president of the United States. But twice? Like so much I had seen over the last four years, it was impossible, and then it was still impossible, and then it had been done. Now, thanks to a remarkable victory, we had four more years to change America. Four more years to close the gap between the country we were and the country we hoped to be.
Was it 2008 all over again? Of course not. I had learned too much about delay and disappointment since then. Running my hand across my punctured belly, I was reminded that some scars don’t quickly heal. But jumping for joy with Jacqui, thinking of the years to come, I wished I could summon Sarah Palin to my side.
“The honeymoon phase may be over,” I’d tell her. “But that hopey, changey thing? It’s working out just fine.”
PART TWO
OUR (TEENSY) PLACE IN HISTORY
9
HITLER AND LIPS
On June 4, 2005, a skinny young senator delivered the commencement address at Knox College, a small liberal-arts school in Illinois. In Obamaworld that speech is like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Casual fans may not have seen it, but it’s worshipped by the hard core.
Rewatch the Knox commencement today, and here’s the first thing you’ll notice: the students are remarkably calm. Sure, there’s some cheering and clapping, but no one’s freaking out about Obama. A few audience members are doubtless wondering who he is. And with his opening anecdote, the speaker acknowledges his newness on the national stage.
“I have not taken a single vote, I have not introduced one bill, had not even sat down in my desk, and this very earnest reporter raises his hand and says, ‘Senator Obama, what is your place in history?’”
Here the young lawmaker pauses, a hint of the timing that will later serve him well.
“I did what you just did, which is laugh out loud.”
But if the senator’s amusement is genuine, so, too, is the sincerity that follows. In fact, after reflecting on the reporter’s question, he surprises the students with the central theme of his speech.
“What,” he asks them, “will be your place in history?”
This was part of what first drew me to Obama: he turned grandiosity on its head. For as he told the Knox College graduates, throughout most of human history, your destiny was certain. Your fate was sealed the moment you were born. America changed that. What made us special—what made us exceptional—was the promise that ordinary people could shape the national life. In fact, they were expected to. For 229 years it was our audiences, not our speakers, who made our country great.
What will be your place in history? In America, that’s not such a dumb question after all.
As President Obama’s second term began, it was certainly the question on everyone’s mind. Many exhausted top advisors, their personal legacies cemented and a second term secure, were finally ready to leave. David Plouffe, the electoral mastermind. Deputy Chief of Staff Nancy-Ann DeParle, who stewarded the president’s health care law. Axe, who shaped the Obama vision more than anyone except Obama himself.
And Favs. At just thirty-one years old, Jon Favreau was already one of the most accomplished speechwriters in history. With no new rhetorical worlds to conquer, he left in early 2013.
I was sad to see Favs go. He was a good boss and a remarkable talent. But President Obama’s loss was my gain—the chief wordsmith’s departure left an opening at the bottom of the speechwriting totem pole. When I returned to the White House in March, my days of professional promiscuity were over. I was now a full-time member of the president’s team.
At the top of the totem pole, Favs’s spot was filled by his deputy, Cody Keenan. It was a smooth transition: Cody had been writing speeches for POTUS since the first campaign. Still, there were subtle differences between my old boss and my new one. I always thought of Favs as an architect, carefully crafting structures of great delicacy. With Cody, the phrase warrior poet sprang to mind. Like his mountain-man beard, which sprouted whenever the stakes grew high, his writing began with something visceral inside him. Emotions came first, only later to be trimmed. This difference in writing style was reflected in attitude. Favs’s confidence was tinged with cleverness; Cody’s with righteousness.
I was especially grateful for this righteous swagger during a POTUS meeting my first week back. The subject was the Gridiron Club Dinner, which, together with the Correspondents’ Dinner and the Alfalfa, makes up the Holy Trinity of presidential comedy events. It had now been eighteen months since I first entered the Oval. I told myself I wasn’t nervous. But when I reached the doorway I froze, terrified of doing something dumb.
Fortunately, Cody was completely comfortable. The president was seated behind his desk, and my new boss sauntered toward him like a detective about to crack a case. I tiptoed cautiously behind.