And it was the upcoming elections, more than the fancy new business card or even the parking pass, that made me excited to become a SAP. As a commissioned officer, I was now exempt from the legal division between official and political activity. Unburdened by the rule that stymied me in 2012, I could finally write speeches for campaigns. And not a moment too soon. With the 2014 midterms approaching, I figured POTUS would spend the fall rallying voters on his fellow Democrats’ behalf.
What I hadn’t realized was just how unpopular we had become. As November drew nearer, the national outlook went from dark to darker. The president’s approvals steadily declined. For Democrats running for senator or governor, it was as though Barack Obama had come down with chicken pox. Barely concealing their panic, they declined his offer to join them on the stump.
There were a few exceptions. On October 28, we flew to Wisconsin to support our candidate for governor, Mary Burke. It was a freezing Tuesday evening, in a state the president had already visited countless times. Even so, thirty-five hundred people showed up. The president reminded the packed high school gym of the progress we had made together. He emphasized the upcoming election’s stakes.
“Cynicism is a choice,” he cried. “Hope is a better choice.”
The audience erupted into rapturous applause. In that room, Obama’s approval rating was a billion gazillion percent. That’s another thing I loved about campaigns. In their final days, you always felt on the cusp of victory, whether you were going to win or lose.
We were going to lose. Badly. By eye-popping margins, voters chose cynicism—unless you’re old enough to have seen Casablanca when it first opened, 2014 was the lowest-turnout election of your life. Not everyone stayed home, of course. Plenty of Republicans showed up. John Boehner added thirteen seats to his House majority. Mitch McConnell needed six seats to take the Senate and picked up nine. Forget poor Mary Burke in Wisconsin. We even lost governors’ races in deep-blue Massachusetts and Illinois.
The 9 A.M meeting the following morning was not one of our cheeriest. Judging from people’s expressions, you would have thought there was an open casket in the room. Policy people were grieving because the outcome made no sense. How could we rescue an economy, take out bin Laden, lay out proposals that routinely garnered support from a majority of Americans, and still get utterly whomped? Campaign people understood that logic doesn’t decide elections. But this same understanding had allowed us to hope, however illogically, that the midterms might swing our way. It was hard to tell who was more distraught.
It fell to David Simas, the president’s political director, to analyze our defeat. Unlike the rest of us, Simas held local office before coming to Washington. He still had politician hair to prove it—a well-defined part just right of center, with two brown cliffs on either side. But the face beneath them, ordinarily home to a cautiously optimistic smile, looked haggard. Each of his PowerPoint slides was bleaker than the last. Too many independents were sick of us. Too many Democrats were tired of us. This wasn’t as bad as 2010. It was worse.
Then, halfway through Simas’s morbid presentation, the door directly to his right burst open. President Obama walked in.
Instantly, the mood transformed. Dispirited eyes lit up. The applause echoing through the Roosevelt Room rivaled anything on the campaign. Once the cheering finally faded, POTUS began to speak.
“I hate losing,” he said, “and we lost bad last night. But I intend to squeeze every ounce of juice out of these next two years.”
For several minutes, he continued in this vein of dogged optimism. I remember trying to pay attention to what he said. But I couldn’t. I was too busy watching the audience. Seated around the giant wooden conference table were the really senior staff, eyes full of misty, overwhelming gratitude. It was as though they were young children, and Barack Obama was the older brother they adored.
I knew that look. I knew how it felt to trust Obama unreservedly, unblinkingly, no matter how daunting the odds. And I realized, with a mix of horror and heartbreak, that I didn’t feel that way anymore. Yes, we had cleaned up George W. Bush’s mess. But that wasn’t the vision that put me and so many others under Obama’s spell. The promise that transfixed us was the one delivered on that January night in Iowa:
“Faced with impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.”
Now it was clearer than ever. The speech that changed my life was just another act of unfounded optimism. No matter how well chosen the president’s words, our story would be written in Mitch McConnell’s language. The cynics were going to win. The believers were going to lose.
The pep talk ended and POTUS left. I clapped and smiled. What else could I do? But how foolish that seemed now. How naive.
AT MOMENTS LIKE THESE, I SINCERELY ENVIED BO, THE OBAMAS’ Portuguese water dog. Bo did not care about poll numbers or stalled legislation. Oblivious to his owner’s approval ratings, he strutted through the White House, somehow aware that in America, presidential pets are the closest thing we have to royalty. In 2013 he was joined by a second dog, Sunny, who shared this understanding. Free from responsibility, Sunny bounded recklessly and put his paws all over everything, like Prince Harry before he settled down.
Now that’s the life, I thought. Give me the juiciest parts of 1600 Pennsylvania: the access, the ego boost, the extra spring of confidence in my step. But spare me the rest of it. Why do I have to lose sleep over the future of universal pre-K? Why does the thought of ending clean-energy tax credits feel so personal it balls my fists in rage?
I didn’t even have to become a dog to be happy. I could be one of the giant spiders that infested the press office, where they got to be, and to eat, the flies on the wall. Or the red-tailed hawk who nested above the South Lawn, the one a group of fourth graders named Lincoln. Lincoln didn’t understand the concept of “administration in crisis.” Lincoln didn’t know how it felt to wonder if years of effort were in vain. To him, the White House was nothing more than a giant squirrel buffet.
Nor did Lincoln know that presidents are expected to hold press conferences after humiliating defeats. But POTUS did. The day after the midterms he summoned reporters for Act I of the traditional post-shellacking script. Their questions left no doubt as to the narrative: “Defeated President Abandons Goals.”
“Do you feel any responsibility to recalibrate your agenda?”
“Why not pull a page from the Clinton playbook and admit you have to make a much more dramatic shift in course?”