The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies
Page 42
(25) Obama hugs Representative Luis Gutiérrez, who later accused him of “bragging about deporting kids.” The president’s unilateral decision on the DREAM Act brought Gutiérrez and other Latinos around.
(26) Michelle Obama’s ad with Cristina Saralegui, “the Latina Oprah,” helped sew up the Latino vote. Wondering off-camera if the Obamas planned to have more children, Saralegui pointed to the first lady’s midsection and asked, “Is the factory closed?”
(27) At a fundraiser in Boca Raton, Romney was caught on tape saying that 47 percent of Americans saw themselves as “victims” who wouldn’t “take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” The comment crystallized doubts about Romney and weakened any chance for a comeback.
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(28) The videographer of the “47 percent tape,” Scott Prouty, a South Florida bartender with a social conscience and a history as a hero in an Everglades rescue, was more offended by Romney’s cavalier comments about inhumane conditions in Chinese sweatshops (next): “I wanted to shout, ‘Would you want your wife working there, Mitt?’ ”
(29, 30)
(31) Backstage at the Democratic Convention Obama watches Bill Clinton’s nominating speech. The two men had a difficult relationship, but Obama was glad to have what he called his “Secretary of Explaining Stuff.”
(32) Obama preps for the first debate with Ron Klain (left) and John Kerry as Romney. The president was 0–6 in rehearsals and not absorbing advice from his worried coaches to be less boring. “I’ll be fine. I’m a game-day player,” he said. But he wasn’t.
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(33) The voter-suppression forces got the worst of both worlds: court decisions allowing “Souls to the Polls” backlash that drove black turnout in key states higher than 2008.
(34) After Donald Trump offered the president $5 million for his college transcripts, comedian Stephen Colbert made an off-color offer of his own to Trump, which the Obamas watched “over and over.”
(35) After Hurricane Sandy, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey helped Obama look presidential. Christie, who hadn’t wanted to run in part so he could keep going to Burger King, planted a question with a reporter, allowing him to reendorse Romney.
(36) Receiving Romney’s concession call after a victory he found sweeter than 2008. Earlier in the evening, when told he had won, the president said, “I’ll believe it when Fox calls it.”
(37) Romney’s poll-watching ORCA system failed, only one of the many partner, Russ Schriefer, apv digital errors by the self-described “numbers guy.” He was so confident of winning, he hadn’ and an angry
">Acknowledgments
Books are both solo enterprises and collective projects, and I got a lot of help on this one. As with The Promise, I interviewed more than two hundred people, this time in 2011 and 2n many of the interviews, especially those below the top, were conducted on background. Unfortunately this is the only way to learn certain things nowadays. It also means that I cannot properly thank all of the people who helped me. So while some readers might be tempted to play a guessing game on who told me what, it would be a mistake to assume any sourcing based on those who are identified or quoted in the book or named below. To all of those in government and politics who lent a hand, but whom I cannot acknowledge, my sincerest thanks.
For sourcing, I’ve mostly used the endnotes to credit people who broke stories or otherwise came up with something new. Quotations not cited in an endnote generally come from my reporting or from easily accessible public statements.
Despite plenty of frustrations along the way, I received the access I needed. Special thanks at the White House to Pete Rouse, Valerie Jarrett, Dav012. Once agai
© KRISTOPHER LONG
JONATHAN ALTER is an analyst and contributing correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He is a former senior editor and columnist for Newsweek, where he worked for twenty-eight years, writing more than fifty cover stories. He has also written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Monthly, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair, the New Republic, and other publications. He is the author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope, both New York Times bestsellers and Notable Books of the Year, and Between the Lines, a collection of his Newsweek columns. Alter lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with his wife, Emily Lazar. They have three children, Charlotte, Tommy, and Molly.
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Notes
AUTHOR’S NOTE
“There’s class warfare, all right: Warren Buffett quoted in New York Times, November 26, 2006.
“At the heart of the American idea: E. J. Dionne, Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent (Bloomsbury: New York, 2013), 6.
1. THE SHELLACKING
“When you say the word ‘compromise’: 60 Minutes, CBS News, December 12, 2010.
Even in heavily blue New York City: Gail Sheehy, Daily Beast, September 23, 2010.
“best-case scenario”: Charlie Cook, National Journal, November 17, 2011.
He rarely went to the Oval Office: John Harris, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House (New York: Random House, 2005), 155.
“We were so busy and so focused: 60 Minutes, CBS News, November 7, 2010.
“The single most important thing: interview with Mitch McConnell, Major Garrett, National Journal, October 29, 2010.
social dysfunction in white working-class areas: Don Peck, The Atlantic Magazine, March 2010.
“The hardest thing to do: James Carville quoted in Sam Stein, The Huffington Post, May 31, 2010.
Gibbs had also run afoul of Jarrett: see Jodi Kantor, The Obamas (New York: Back Bay Books, 2012).
2. TEA PARTY TEMPEST
inadvertently called them “tea-baggers”: Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 129.
Only about a quarter of the small Tea Party websites: see William Eger, “Hanging Together: Overcoming Dissent in the Tea Party Movement,” senior thesis, Harvard University, 2012.
Between 600,000 and 1.2 million people: TalkingPointsMemo.com, December 28, 2011.
Tea Party made up 20 percent of the American population: see Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
“the Incredible HOLC”: Alan Blinder, New York Times, February 4, 2008.
3. OBAMA DERANGEMENT SYNDROME
Nearly 25 percent of Republicans: Newsweek poll. See Jonathan Alter, “The Illustrated Man,” Newsweek, September 6, 2010; CNN poll, Politico, August 14, 2010.
16 percent of the people she talked to: Sabrina Tavernise and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times, April 18, 2012.
“the paranoid style: Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963)
“All of these articles: Mark Penn quoted in Joshua Green, Atlantic, May 30, 2012.
Weissberg wrote that “countless conservatives despised: Robert Weissberg, “A Stranger in Our Midst,” American Thinker, April 29, 2010.
“those days when we were in different classes: Sarah Palin on
Hannity, Fox News Channel, March 8, 2012.
“the collapse of conservatism: Brian Stelter and Bill Carter, New York Times, March 29, 2009.
“We’re Not Perfect. But They’re Nuts”: Jason Zengerle, interview with Barney Frank, New York, April 15, 2012.
4. STRANGLED IN THE BATHTUB
“Seeing Purple”: Jonathan Alter, “Barack Obama: Seeing Purple,” Newsweek, December 27, 2004.
The combined effect of the Bush and Clinton budget deals: Eduardo Porter, New York Times, March 28, 2012; Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez, Wall Street Journal, April 24, 2012.
Shortly before the 2012 election: Jonathan Weisman, New York Times, November 1, 2012.
“We are using Communist military: Jonas Savimbi (with Grover Norquist), The Policy Review, January 1986.
By this time Norquist had emerged as a right-wing antihero: see Nina Easton, Gang of Five: Five Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Ascendency (New York: Touchstone, 2002).
“We are trying to change the tones: Grover Norquist quoted in John Aloysius Farrell, Boston Globe, May 26, 2003.
“after the Cold War was over: Matthew Continetti, The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (New York: Doubleday, 2006).
But another adviser, Roger Ailes: Richard Darman, Who’s in Control? Polar Politics and the Sensible Center (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 193.
“The only way we’ll succeed: Robert Draper, Do Not Ask What Good We Do (New York: Free Press, 2012), xviii.
“Who the hell is Grover Norquist, anyway?”: Mark K. Updegrove, Parade, July 15, 2012.
5. FOX NATION
“I hired Sarah Palin: Roger Ailes to Associated Press, October 5, 2011.
Ailes confirmed the story to Woodward: Bob Woodward, Washington Post, December 4, 2012.
McFarland was right: Alter, The Promise, 365.
build a White House–run TV network: John Cook, Business Insider, June 30, 2011.
when he demanded that security: Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, May 25, 2011.
“Take that bone out of your nose: see http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/rush-limbaugh-racist-quotes-070710; http://newsone.com/16051/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/.
6. THE VOTER-SUPPRESSION PROJECT
“I don’t want everyone to vote: see Josh Glasstetter, RightWingWatch.org, November 5, 2012.
ALEC sponsored forums: See ALECEXPOSED.org.
The improperly purged names: David Margolick, Evangelina Peretz, and Michael Shnayerson, Vanity Fair, October 2004.
the Bush Justice Department acknowledged in 2007: Eric Lipton and Ian Urbina, New York Times, April 12, 2007.
Because Franken’s race against Norm Coleman: Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet.com, August 8, 2012.
GOP state legislators introduced 140 bills: see Brennan Center for Justice.
three other former GOP officials: Dara Kam and John Lantigua, Palm Beach Post, November 25, 2012; Lucy Morgan, Tampa Bay Times, July 26, 2012.
The racial disparities: Obama for America v Husted, 2012.
“Voting as a liberal, that’s what kids do”: Peter Wallsten, Washington Post, March 8, 2011.
“driving and seeing the police following [them]”: Brentin Mock, ColorLines.com, August 23, 2012.
7. THE NEW CHICAGO MACHINE
new statistics: For a statistical look at OFA’s technology efforts, see Engage Research, Inside the Cave, 2012.
let OFA wither: For an independent take on OFA after 2008, see Ari Melber, “Year One of Organizing for America,” Techpresident Special Report, January 14, 2010.
8. THE CAVE
In 2012 Chicago sought to extend the modeling: see Sasha Issenberg, The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns (New York: Crown, 2012); Sasha Issenberg, “A More Perfect Union,” Technology Review, December 19, 2012.
politics as done by Martians: Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2011.
9. NOT SO GREAT COMMUNICATOR?
Obama was also much taken with an article: Ezra Klein, New Yorker, March 19, 2012.
“It’s as if Superman stepped out of a phone booth: Associated Press, January 20, 2009.
“In this country, there’s no reason why: The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, February 6, 2011.
“the American people were hungry for the truth: Douglas Brinkley, Cronkite (New York: Harper partner, Russ Schriefer, ass small Collins, 2012), 664.
“The mistake of my first couple of years: Interview with Charlie Rose, CBS News, July 13, 2012.
10. MISSING THE SCHMOOZE GENE
“When I’m over here at the congressional picnic: White House News Conference, January 14, 2013
During a scene in By the People: see By the People: The Election of Barack Obama, HBO Documentary Films, 2009.
“a bit of a wall—the veil: Genevieve Cook quoted in David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), 481.
to read classic American novels together: Jodi Kantor, New York Times, January 21, 2013.
11. THE KEEPER OF THE ESSENCE
“We got a lot of Barack Obama’s Wall Street money: see Institute of Politics, University of Chicago, conversation with Spencer Zwick and Julianna Smoot, March 5, 2013.
Then came an interview Daley gave: Bill Daley interview with Roger Simon, Politico, October 28, 2011.
12. “WE GOT HIM!”
Much of this chapter is based on background interviews with four officials who were in the room with the president for key meetings related to the bin Laden raid.
This meant that use of the word assassination: see Daniel Klaidman, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012).
“Oh, absolutely: Obama interview with Jessica Yellin, “Obama Revealed: The Man, the President,” CNN, September 3, 2012.
“about as active as any project: 60 Minutes, CBS News, May 8, 2011.
Obama later told the author: Mark Bowden, The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2012), 252.
“And you do a little prayin’ ”: Rock Center with Brian Williams, NBC News, May 2, 2012.
“That was a little bit of acting: Ibid.
“This was the longest forty minutes: Ibid.
bin Laden’s being buried at sea: Brian Whitaker, Guardian, May 2, 2011.
“Shut the fuck up”: David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and the Surprising Use of American Power (New York: Crown, 2012), 107.
“give those SEALs a big hug: author interview with Virginia Bauer.
“most important single day of my presidency”: Rock Center with Brian Williams, NBC News, May 2, 2012.
Karl Rove wrote in his Wall Street Journal column: Karl Rove, Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2012.
“I’m not a political guy: Interview with Admiral McRaven, The Situation Room, CNN, July 26, 2012.
expansion to so-called signature strikes: Scott Shane, New York Times, November 24, 2012; Bowden, The Finish; The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Comedy Central, October 18, 2012.
13. OBAMA’S LOW POINT
“A tax increase now: Wall Street Journal editorial staff, The Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2011.
“I’m going to have to walk away: Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 182.
“Ooh, he was hot: Ibid., 299.
Goolsbee estimated that default: see Bipartisan Policy Center.
“It’s reasonable,” said Bruce Bartlett: Bruce Bartlett, Financial Times, May 6, 2011.
Obama denied that account to Bob Woodward: Woodward, Obama’s Wars, 312.
“I felt like I died and went to black heaven: Chris Rock stand-up routine, The Comedy Store, Los Angeles, March 3, 2012.
“Is Obama Toast?”: Nate Silver, New York Times Magazine, November 3, 2011.
14. THE CLOWN CAR
“People will look back at these Republican candidates: Joe Scarborough, Morning Joe, MSNBC, October 24, 2011.
T
hose people in the Republican primary: Pat Robertson, 700 Club, Christian Broadcasting Network, October 24, 2011.
Federal Judge Richard Posner, a barometer: Nina Totenberg, Morning Edition, National Public Radio, July 5, 2012.
Columnist Charles Krauthammer referred to the field: Daily Beast, August 9, 2012.
The News Corp. founder was eager for: Rupert Murdoch to author, April 30, 2012.
“We could have beaten Perry: Matt Rhoades, Harvard Campaign Managers Conference, Institute of Politics, Harvard University, December 4, 2012.
He was a serial adulterer: Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2011.
“What the hell are you doing, Newt?”: Rudy Giuliani, Fox and Friends, Fox News, January 12, 2012.
15. PLAYGROUND OF THE SUPERRICH
In a CNN poll: CNN/ORC International poll, November 26, 2012.
Cyrus McCormick sent 7,500 field agents: see Jack Beatty, Age of Betrayal: The Triumph of Money in America, 1865–1900 (New York: Knopf, 2007).
“The secrecy seems hypocritical”: Daniel Fisher, Forbes, December 24, 2012.
According to a surreptitious taping of his speech: Brad Friedman, Mother Jones, September 6, 2011.
Their family fortune grew from $50 billion to $62 billion: Forbes, September 20, 2012.
“Look, I’m basically a social liberal”: Alicia Mundy, Wall Street Journal, December 5, 2012.
“If I’m fortunate enough to be invited to another: Maggie Haberman, Politico, September 23, 2012.
Through much of the twentieth century, class rhetoric: Beatty, Age of Betrayal, 164; New York Times, April 23, 1962.