by Love, Reggie
As time passed, I had to get used to the gap, sometimes vast, between what the public perceived was happening in D.C. and what was actually getting done in the White House. The President taught me the value of transparent government, honesty, and hard work. He also taught me the importance of navigating by your core principles rather than by public perceptions. In D.C., everyone is always keeping score. Which makes it hard to move forward. There are twenty-year-old grudges. Many politicians don’t seem to get the concept of “next play.” Obama was different.
On the Democratic side, there were some who complained that Obama was no Bill Clinton. Even after I was out of the White House, reporters would email and call me. They’d argue that Obama was aloof and was an atypical president and politician because he had a different appetite for entertaining than President Clinton did. Sometimes supporters also complained about access to the administration. In some ways, the grousing was earned. This administration was tough on quid pro quo. Obama wasn’t doing business as usual; there was actual change in his administration.
I found it ironic that Obama was criticized for not wanting to hang out with Speaker John Boehner because he preferred to have dinner with his daughters and his wife. I also found it problematic that people were judging his performance and making comparisons across generational lines. What a president with two young children does after work varies greatly from what a president with adult children does. Or questioning his leadership of the party without factoring in how the Democrats are split across several different issues—LGBT, immigration, women’s rights, to name just a few—whereas the Republicans, at least in their loathing of Obama, are steadfastly homogenous. The line he needed to walk was always much narrower.
If it was maddening for me, I could only imagine how wearisome it must have been for the President. Casting aspersions often seemed the default mode of Washington politics, and shadows of doubt were often good enough to grind progress to a halt. But Obama was used to the shade throwing and believed that the best cure for shade was sunlight. Something he proved time and again during the campaign, never more so than when he was getting blowback from his association with his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
Wright had caught national attention in 2008 when fragments of some ill-advised sermons he’d made years ago were unearthed and made public. Obama emphatically denounced the statements in question, but critics would not let it go. His instinct was to address the controversy head-on.
“I’m not sure this is such a great play,” Axelrod warned, echoing the sentiments of the entire team, who didn’t want the candidate to wade into the turbulent waters of racial politics in America. But the senator would not be swayed.
He was set to give a speech to about one hundred people in Philadelphia, but he tossed the original script and started over, completely rewriting the speech by hand. The result was titled “A More Perfect Union,” and it read in part:
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely—just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country—a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam. As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive—divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems—two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis, and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
The speech resonated for the campaign and the country. The senator had gone against all conventional wisdom, as well as the wishes of most of his expert staff. He’d thought for himself. Acted. And tackled an issue that no one else would touch. He shined a light on a bigger picture.
I’d grown up in a church not unlike Wright’s. I understood the layers beneath the issue and the touchiness on all sides. Obama’s speech moved me. I’d read it on paper several times, but hearing the words delivered in his powerful, heartfelt voice was a revelation. And not just to me. It essentially killed the controversy dead for the remainder of the campaign and reminded our nation that race relations were being inadequately addressed.
In that one hour, the senator taught me the value of not sweeping problems under the rug. That only by addressing issues openly and directly can one eventually move on and grow from them. Did he convince everyone? Of course not. You never will. But reasonable people are open to hearing a case well made, and it is reasonable people who get most of what must get done done. Obama spoke to them, and they listened.
When the speech was over, I passed the senator the handwritten pages he’d penned the night before. “One for the history books,” I said, optimistic and proud of my boss in a brand-new way.
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USE YOUR VOICE
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It isn’t possible to estimate how many meetings, fundraisers, and rallies we attended throughout the campaign, but I do know that one of the most meaningful experiences on the trail was also one of the tiniest.
Early on in South Carolina, the senator met with a state representative in Columbia, and asked for her vote. She said she would consider supporting the candidate if he would agree to visit her hometown of Greenwood. A month later, we were back down south, driving several hours to Greenwood for the promised visit and Obama rally.
At first, we thought we’d parked at the wrong place. There was no one around. When we entered the building, our impression didn’t change. It was a ghost town. Dark, quiet, and the opposite of confidence-building. After further inspection, we stumbled upon our potential supporters. All ten of them.
As the senator sucked it up, swallowed his understandable disappointment, and began to work the room, we heard a jarring shout from the corner.
“Fired up!”
We all swiveled our heads simultaneously like prairie dogs, checking out the source of the startling racket. It was a petite, older woman in a large church hat.
“Fired up!” she shouted again into the largely vacant room.
And without any prompting, the nine other folks gathered at the field house chanted back: “Ready to go!”
The little old lady yelled again, with more conviction, “Fired up!”
“Ready to go!” the small crowd yelled back.
And so it went. At first, we were confused. Nothing like this had ever happened on the trail before. But there was no resisting the energy in the room. The cheering was infectious. By her sixth cry of “Fired up!” every member of our team joined in, “Ready to go!”
What had started as a dismal hour we couldn’t wait to get through turned into the most lasting rallying cry of the campaign. We later learned that the woman who started the chant was a city council member named Edith Childs, who also moonlighted as a private investigator. She was known around town for leading the same back-and-forth at all the rallies and parades. And by the time we left Greenwood, we were, in fact, “Fired up and ready to go!”
For the rest of the election season, whenever we were seized with lethargy or dragging our heels, the senator would
say, “Fired up!” And the rest of us would holler back, “Ready to go!” It never failed to lift our spirits, and it was a deep comfort to hear little Edith Childs’s voice in our heads, pushing us on.
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The more time we spent in each other’s company, the more I marveled at Obama’s naturally inquisitive nature—often the significance of a question from him wouldn’t become apparent to me until days or weeks later. He had an insatiable appetite for information. I would get emails at 3 A.M., questions he wanted me to follow up on. The man never took a day off. No detail was too small for him. He was never afraid of looking like he didn’t have the answer, but he worked tirelessly to try to understand all sides of a position. I saw how much more strength and authority his curiosity gave him. Far better than the bluster and pride of trying to be omniscient all the time.
More to the point, once he dove in with the questions, you knew you needed to have a deep understanding of the subject, and if you couldn’t explain why you thought a certain way or were suggesting a particular course of action, he would know. He would want to know not just content, but most importantly, your reasoning—why now, why not sooner, or why not later? He would expose ideas and solutions that hadn’t been considered. There was no room for bullshitting or not thinking things through. There was no skating by on empty opinion. You learned in a hurry that if you were going to speak, you’d better know what the heck you were talking about.
Obama was also big on understanding the character of people. If he was talking with you, chances were he was asking questions.
“How old are your kids?” “What school are they in?” “What books are they reading?” “What time do they go to bed?”
And he listened to the answers. There was never a non-inquisitive moment. He would ask and lean forward to listen, and then he would ask something else. He was exceptional at making people feel at ease one-on-one, whether the person was royalty or a janitor. Obama never viewed himself as bigger than life or better than others. He knew that once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box. He also saw himself as a conduit for the American people, people like Edith Childs.
That stop in Greenwood, South Carolina, shifted my perspective in many ways. There are no small events; every play matters. You never know what will happen, and honoring your promises matters more than you can ever know.
Maybe you don’t think you’ll be able to make a difference, but everyone can be a leader in their own community. You can decide to be politically active. You can inspire with the smallest gesture. You can be fuel for a larger fire.
More than anything, that visit showed me the power of a single voice. And how if you open your mouth and use it, you can change the world.
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PLAY IT OUT
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I knew my life had taken a dramatic turn when the thing that made me happiest in the world wasn’t an evening with a woman I was charmed by, or Duke winning a game, but spending two consecutive nights in the same hotel. During the campaign that particular luxury became my white whale, the pinnacle of pleasure.
I was not alone in my appreciation of staying put. Every time I told the senator that we wouldn’t be packing up until the next day, he would visibly relax. “Now, that,” he’d say, “is the best news of the day.”
Can you imagine what it would be like to pack and unpack every single morning and night? Seriously. Every morning, pack a bag, and then get in late in the evening and unpack (or at least find your toothbrush and clothes for the next day), then repeat, often twice in the same twenty-four hours. It was the worst. But I can say with unquestionable authority, I’m now one of the foremost experts on luggage and packing. I sometimes feel like a walking advertisement for Tumi, Samsonite, and WallyBags. Still, like everything else on the job, it took me a while to figure it out. And it provided an early lesson in how significant the seemingly insignificant can be.
In the beginning, I used your standard duffels and garment bags. But average luggage wasn’t really built for campaign travel, and time and again the candidate’s clothes would wrinkle. More often than not one of the hangers grouped at the top of a garment bag would wriggle free and find its way to the bottom, dragging its suit and maybe a shirt with it. Unpack the bag and there they would be, rumpled. Suffice it to say, no one blames luggage for long. Eventually, they look to the guy lugging the luggage. Nor did anyone love it when a week’s worth of clothing got damp from being left plane-side in the rain or snow.
My salvation came in the form of the WallyBag, which had a clip that kept all the hangers in one place. It was also durable and waterproof. I bought ten of them. Mrs. Obama used one. Marvin used one. I would give them as gifts to colleagues who often complained about the rigors of travel. I also got some waterproof duffels for gym clothes. I became the luggage whisperer. It only took me thirteen months. But once I did, it was a problem (an admittedly minor one) solved, freeing up time and energy for bigger hurdles.
That’s what happens on a campaign (and later what happened in the White House)—you appreciate the small victories. We still aimed for the highlight reel–worthy successes, of course. But every day doesn’t end or start with a slam dunk. Disappointment and setbacks are the rule. And particularly on a campaign, you grab your creature comforts when and where you can. So I found myself doing happy dances about things like luggage, warm cookies at check-in, or a twenty-four-hour McDonald’s within walking distance of the hotel.
Having been cut from two NFL teams and my middle school basketball team back in seventh grade, I was used to unwanted no’s and dreams deferred. As an athlete, you learn quickly that failure doesn’t take away from the work, and that courage means pressing on no matter how many failures are in your wake. You prepare to win, and you always play to win, but sometimes even great preparation and playing doesn’t yield a win. If you are in the game long enough, you see it all. The heartbreak. The miracles. The whims of fate. The soul-crushing upsets. David beating Goliath.
I remember the first buzzer beater I ever hit. It was during the state tournament in Mount Airy, North Carolina. I was fourteen years old, and Ken Perry, my coach at the time, said, “Look, if you guys just get us close, we can win.”
Coach Perry was this old-school, grizzled African-American, really tall, walked with a limp. And we were the Bad News Bears of the tourney. Our jerseys were cheap, royal blue—for our team name, the Royals—with bright orange writing across the front.
Our opponent was King’s Mountain, a remarkable, talent-filled team that seemed to win every year. They had these giant twins who were built like tanks. I think one of the kids’ names actually was Tank. Even so, that Sunday we had the game of our lives. Just like coach wanted, we found ourselves super-close. Part of me didn’t believe we could win. With time running down, we ran a play. It didn’t work. And I found myself in the corner with the ball. I heaved it up, and holy crap, it went in! The buzzer sounded. Everyone flooded the court. It was mayhem. We’d won, even though the opposing team was far better—except for that Sunday afternoon.
That afternoon taught me the importance of playing it out. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes it is simply your day. Regardless of the odds, you play to the finish because that’s what it means to compete. If outcomes were predetermined, playing the actual game would have no value.
At a later game of the fifteen-and-under nationals, in Des Moines, Iowa, we got beat by the Atlanta Celtics in the elite eight, where I missed a wide open three-pointer to tie the game up. We packed up our bags and left town having battled our hardest. The dream was dead for another season. I had no idea how familiar that feeling would be a short time in my future.
Presidential campaigns are a 24-7 ordeal. You go where the people are, period. There is no calling in sick. There are no snow days. As Robert Gibbs would say, “Once you’re in, you’re in.”
I recall one scorcher in Iowa, it must have b
een 101 degrees outside, and we were all standing around sweating into our suits—Marvin, the senator, all of us trying not to look disgusting while the fabric clung to our wet skin like toilet paper to a shoe.
I turned to the candidate and said, “At least I’m not at training camp getting crushed by the likes of Flozell Adams and Larry Allen [guys who could bench press seven hundred pounds]. This is much more bearable, it’s just hot.”
He laughed, and we continued to talk about what a Bill Parcells training camp is actually like. I told him every practice was full speed and full contact, even if it was against NFL policy. Parcells believed in practicing in game conditions and at game speed, and who is going to argue with a guy with two Super Bowl rings?
After I’d finished my fourth year of football at Duke, I went to Green Bay as an undrafted free agent in a package deal with a few other players. I didn’t make the roster, which wasn’t a surprise, as the guys I was competing against were much better than me—Donald Driver, Robert Ferguson, Javon Walker—and I knew going in that I was a long shot. The following year I ended up at Dallas as an outside linebacker. Bill Parcells had called me and asked if I would come and play defense. The Tuna wanted me? I’m there!
