The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory

by David Plouffe

  The closing days in Iowa were frigid. I don’t know what the actual wind chill factor was, but I can tell you it was friggin’ cold, and yet our volunteers knocked on more than fifty thousand doors a day. They showed remarkable dedication. It was brutal out in that cold, but we all believed that a last-minute door-knocking assault would pay huge dividends. Our volunteers reported back that they saw comparatively less door-knocking activity from Clinton or Edwards, which surprised us—our data analysis made it clear that door knocking had become much more effective than phone calling. By this point, people had been called so many times that they would often answer the phone rudely, which was unusual in preternaturally polite Iowa. The voters had had enough calling. But when someone came to their door in frigid weather, they were more likely to engage in conversation (out of sympathy if nothing else), and many voters would even invite our volunteers in.

  Obama’s first event on New Year’s Day was in Des Moines, and it was billed as a canvass kickoff. We asked our volunteers to gather at a local high school, where they would hear Barack and Michelle speak before going out into neighborhoods with their canvass materials. There was electricity in the air. The caucuses were only two days out, so that was part of it, but the Register poll had clearly sent a surge through our organization. People could smell both the finish line and victory.

  We had made big buttons for our precinct captains to help identify them, so I wandered through the crowd before the event and asked these folks where things stood. Some I had met before, many I had not. I was impressed with their grasp of the numbers in their precincts—how many more confirmed supporters we needed to get an extra delegate, how they thought the Richardson or Biden supporters would break on the second ballot, how they were dealing with the challenge of producing a high turnout. It was a confidence-inspiring half hour. These people were so committed. They were on top of it. And I think they realized how much we appreciated them, that we thought they were the campaign. It was true—we would rise or fall in two days based on their work. Mitch Henry, a precinct captain and talented community organizer in East Des Moines with whom I had first worked way back in 1991 at the Iowa Democratic Party, went so far as to tell me, “David, you are going to win on Thursday night. I can feel it on the streets. I don’t even think it is going to be close.” I would take a one-point victory, but a landslide was a fun scenario to contemplate.

  One of the last critical moments of the Iowa campaign occurred at this Des Moines event and involved a decision that would’ve been a no-brainer at just about any other time. John Kerry had almost endorsed us in late December, which we thought at the time would have given us a real boost. As the Democratic Party’s most recent nominee, whose Iowa win four years ago had propelled him to that nomination, his endorsement would have a big media footprint and provide a surge of late momentum. In Iowa, our estimate was that around ten thousand of his supporters from 2004 were still saying they were undecided. We thought his support could tip a lot of these people into our column.

  But Kerry got cold feet on December 28 when a public poll came out from a polling firm with little Iowa experience that showed us in third place and trailing badly. Kerry told Jim Margolis, who had helped him win the caucuses in 2004, that he really wanted to support Barack. He had made that decision. But there would be a huge price to pay if Hillary won after he came out publicly. He decided to wait and see how things played out. We were disappointed but moved on.

  The morning of January 1, Margolis got a call on his cell phone from Kerry. So did Marvin Nicholson, who had served as trip director for Kerry and was still very close to him. Kerry had seen the Register poll. He was ready to come in later that day and endorse us and campaign through caucus night. Margolis called me to relay this—we were all at the Des Moines event but not all together. I told him I would send an e-mail to everyone.

  Five minutes later we all gathered under the high school gym’s bleachers. Along with me, there was Margolis and Nicholson, Axelrod and Gibbs, Tewes and Mitch Stewart, and John Norris, Kerry’s former Iowa state director who was supporting us and providing a lot of strategic guidance. It was pitch dark under the bleachers. Even huddled in a circle it was hard to make out people’s faces. We held our cell phones up so some blue light would be emitted and we could see at least the outlines of one another’s faces. I’ve always wished we had a picture of that; we must have looked ridiculous. The setting was humorous, the discussion deadly serious—this was a decision with major consequences.

  I started by laying out my view. A Kerry endorsement would be the dominant story all the way through caucus night. We would black out the other candidates and be the only press story in town. It would no doubt push some old Kerry supporters into our camp. But we appeared to have momentum now, not reflected in our polling but in our field data, from what we were hearing from our staff around the state and from the crowds coming to hear Barack and Michelle. We were running as the outsider candidate, severely dependent on new and younger voters, independents, and Republicans. In some ways a Kerry endorsement, the establishment laying hands on us, would fly counter to that message. I feared it could sap some of our momentum and turnout with the harder to reach voters whom we so desperately needed. I was opposed.

  Tewes was even more adamant in his opposition. “It just doesn’t feel right,” he kept saying. “A few days ago, yes. But now, done this late it would essentially serve as our closing argument, a political endorsement. That’s not who we are. We can’t do this.”

  Others disagreed—especially those who had worked with Kerry. They felt it would provide a burst of momentum like the one Kerry had received four years ago when the crewmate he saved in Vietnam—and to whom he had not spoken since—showed up out of nowhere the last weekend of the caucuses and dominated the press coverage. This had been a big factor in Kerry’s winning Iowa so strongly.

  We went back and forth for some time. Eventually there was consensus. We would recommend to Obama no endorsement. There is an oft-published photograph of a few of us sitting in a circle talking to Obama in a locker room in Iowa. That picture captures us discussing this decision. I started by laying out for him the pros and cons and then our recommendation. Axelrod and a few others also offered their take. But Obama was rightly not as interested in what the national staff had to say. He wanted to know what the Iowa guys thought. Tewes and Mitch made a strong case against.

  “It’s a big roll of the dice,” Obama said finally. “But we’ve come this far and the whole thing was a roll of the dice. I’ll call John and tell him thanks, but it will be more important down the road.”

  And in the end it was. After Kerry did endorse us on January 10, he turned out to be a real trouper, one of our most effective surrogates on the trail and on TV. He never pulled the “I did this four years ago, I know best” routine. He was there for the right reasons and always took a constructive approach, giving us wise but respectful counsel. “This is not my race four years ago, it’s your race now,” he said to me at one point, “and I’ve found that unless you’re living and breathing it every day, you should be careful giving sweeping advice and pontifications. So take any advice I offer with that grain of salt.”

  Our handling of the Kerry endorsement illuminates one of the real strengths of our campaign. The political playbook certainly would have suggested the endorsement take place that day. And most campaigns I believe would have taken that route. But we looked deeper than just the tactical benefits and tried to look around the corner strategically. I would often refer to that day when we faced tough decisions down the line and were tentatively leaning in the less predictable direction. It almost became a reference point and rallying cry: “This is a ‘tell Kerry no endorsement’ moment.” In the end, the tough decision we made was unquestionably the correct one. Just about every time we took the road less traveled, we benefited.

  On caucus day, I woke up in the Des Moines Holiday Inn for the eighth day in a row, feeling cautiously confident and struck by the fact
that this would be our last night in Iowa, perhaps forever. That night we would be flying out to New Hampshire, win or lose. A year of our lives was coming to a close. I thought that if all those young voters, non-caucus-goers, independents, and Republicans turned out in decent numbers, we should be heading to New Hampshire as a winner. I knew our organization in Iowa—both staff and volunteers—had done everything humanly possible to put us in a position to win. And if we did, their work would go down in political history as one of the greatest accomplishments in a presidential campaign.

  I felt more sanguine than nervous. We had spent the better part of the year on Iowa, and while we sometimes made mistakes and went through our share of ups and downs, this was one of those rare moments in life when we rightly felt that there was nothing left to be done. We weren’t leaving anything on the field.

  When I talked to Obama that morning, he felt the same way. “I am at peace,” he told me. “We gave it our all. Win or lose, I won’t have regrets about what we did here in Iowa.”

  That afternoon I was in the Des Moines headquarters, preparing to hold a conference call with Nevada reporters, when my cell phone rang. It was my insurance company, calling to ask me a couple of follow-up questions about the accident.

  Accident? “What accident?” I asked.

  “The accident on Interstate 80 with the tractor-trailer earlier today,” the agent replied.

  I immediately hung up and called my wife’s cell phone, in a mild panic. She answered and I exhaled. “I just got a call from Geico,” I said, “Are you okay?”

  She sounded a bit shaken but said she was all right. My family knew how much was riding on that night’s outcome, and my sister had flown into Chicago to watch our son so my wife could drive to Des Moines for the caucuses. She and a friend from the campaign’s policy team had left Chicago before daylight in order to spend the day in our Des Moines field office making calls. Outside of Iowa City, their car had been rear-ended by a semi and the police had driven her to a rest stop, where she was still waiting for a tow.

  As I was about to launch into questions, she cut me off. “I’m so sorry you heard about this from the insurance company!” she said. “I didn’t want to tell you because you have enough on your mind. But we’re fine. I’ll see you in a few hours.” Then she hopped off the phone to coordinate her rescue.

  I felt terrible—my wife was dealing with a serious accident without me because I was so consumed with this infernal campaign. The only upside to losing would be that I could rejoin my family’s life. But I had to snap back to campaign reality. In a few moments, I needed to get on the phone with the Nevada press to stress how much time we would be spending there after Iowa and New Hampshire. I was also hoping to drive up the expectations for Clinton, saying we just hoped to keep it close, given the thirty-point lead she had there. And that’s how it was: one foot in Iowa, one already creeping out.

  After the call I was driven out to the Obama hotel camp west of Des Moines. The traveling party was not staying at our old standby the Hampton Inn because we needed many more rooms than usual; a lot of family and friends of the Obamas had decided to come for the last week.

  At a little before 6:00 p.m., the Iowa staff requested that Barack make an unscheduled stop—no press in tow—to greet arriving caucus-goers at a site in Ankeny, Iowa, about twenty minutes away, where multiple precincts were holding their events. “We’ve left no stone unturned up to now,” said Tewes. “Let’s not switch gears in the minutes before the caucus. It probably won’t make a difference in the math, but if it swings one delegate, why not?” He was right.

  Barack and I rode out with the Secret Service, Marvin, Reggie, and Valerie Jarrett. This was as light as we had traveled in months. We pulled up to the suburban high school in Ankeny at 6:15 p.m. The caucuses started at 7:00 p.m. Already the parking lot was beyond jammed. They were parking on the sidewalk, on the grass, just leaving their cars wherever they could find space. Obama and I looked at each other and smiled.

  No one was expecting him, so as he climbed the steps and entered the lobby of the school, people gasped and he was quickly surrounded. Some people he spoke with said they were still undecided, so he spent a little time answering their questions and urging them to caucus for him. Most of the people who came up to him, dozens and dozens, said they were supporting him. It almost brought me to tears. Right there, in front of our eyes on caucus night, we were seeing the coalition of voters we had set out to build: high school kids; Republicans who said they were switching their registration to caucus for Barack; Iowa residents attending Michigan and Wisconsin colleges who had stayed home a few extra days to caucus; an older couple who said they had not participated since 1968, when they volunteered for Bobby Kennedy. And my favorite, a man dressed like Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings, holding a staff with an iPod attached at the top and a little speaker playing Obama’s speeches on repeat.

  A few minutes later, when the Secret Service closed the doors of our SUV and we were pulling out, Obama and I shared a fist-bump, more common in our operation than a high-five. “No matter what happens tonight, I’ll always treasure that scene,” he said. “That’s what we tried to build. And at least in that school, on this night, it happened.”

  We got back to the hotel around 7:15 p.m. and turnout estimates and anecdotes were starting to come in over the e-mail transom. At first, the news was good. Then it was great. We were getting reports of shockingly high turnout everywhere. The only concern was that facilities and caucus officials might not be able to handle the volume, and that some people—especially our less rabid supporters—would leave out of frustration or confusion. We had nothing to worry about. People were dead set on participating that night. A few caucuses were even held outside in the bitter cold because the site ran out of room indoors. But few people were complaining or leaving.

  The entrance polls—a reverse exit poll—had Clinton up early, narrowly ahead of us, with Edwards trailing. I paid no attention—with turnout like this, entrance polls would be of even less predictive value than normal, which is close to zero.

  Obama was at dinner with his family and friends at a steak house down the road. He told me he did not want frequent updates. “Just call me when you know something,” he said.

  I kept a post in our conference room with Gibbs and my assistant, Katie, who was staying abreast of updates in our internal tracking. Our data team was crunching every precinct that reported in, comparing it with our projections for each one in terms of turnout and delegate allocation. After only a handful of precincts, they upped our internal turnout estimate to over 200,000, which blew our minds. We thought 175,000 was likely—Clinton and Edwards in particular thought turnout would be lower than that—and that 200,000 was the outer edge. But it appeared now that 200,000 would be the floor. It was nothing but good news for us. Our band of ragtag supporters was turning out en masse.

  At some point shortly after 9:00 p.m., I giddily took out my phone and called Obama, who was still at dinner. “Hello?”

  “Congratulations, Senator,” I said. “You have won the Iowa caucuses.” In his calm Obama way, Barack replied, “Are we sure?”

  “Yes,” I told him. “We hear the networks will be calling it soon, too.” “I’ll be back shortly,” he said. I envisioned him turning back to cutting his steak and chatting with his friends and family members, saying, “Oh by the way, we just won Iowa.” The mood fit the man: not too high and not too low, even as he took a decisive step toward the presidency.

  After a short celebration and several rounds of high-fives and hugs with the few people gathered in the conference room, Gibbs and I headed down the hall to Obama’s room. He had just arrived and threw open the door to greet us. There was some fist-bumping and backslapping, but no champagne or screaming. Yes, this was a huge step. But after all, it was still just the first step in our plan. And with this triumph we all felt the press of some additional weight that had not been there a day ago—we could actually win this whole thing. I
n many ways the moment held more gravity than levity.

  After the networks called it for us, we loaded into the caravan and headed to our event site in downtown Des Moines. Reggie and I rode with the Obamas, and Barack spent the entire ride fielding congratulatory calls from his vanquished rivals. Biden and Dodd said they were pulling out. Richardson said he might. Edwards was gracious and said he would see him in New Hampshire. Hillary was polite but cool. After hanging up from the last call, he turned to me and said, “I imagine it’s a lot more enjoyable to take these calls than make them.” I laughed. “Well, then let’s make this a tradition over the next few weeks.”

  The final margin grew to a stunning eight points by the time we arrived at the event site. And it looked like Hillary would finish narrowly behind Edwards. While this might have been a source of extra glee, I was in fact rooting for Hillary to pull into second. If Edwards finished third, his vote share in New Hampshire would likely fall into the low double digits from the mid-high double digits. And we thought almost all of those votes would go to us.

  When we got to the victory party I finally saw my wife, who’d been rescued on the road by one of our traveling teams. The room was a sea of smiling, tear-stained faces, and hers was no exception. Her wet cheek pressed against mine as she gave me a huge hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she said.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked. “How are you going to get back to Chicago?”

  “Forget the car,” she said. “We’re about to change the world.”

  After all the speeches and celebrations, right before the motorcade to the airport pulled out, Obama spent some private time with our senior Iowa staff. I didn’t go in because I wanted it to be their moment, and theirs alone. They had just made history. I was told it was highly emotional on both sides. Obama emerged from the room red-eyed and said quietly, “I love those kids.” He wasn’t exaggerating, about his feelings or their age—other than Tewes, they were all under thirty, like so many of the voters who had delivered this win.