Ryan Lizza's New Yorker cover story may not contain as many juicy insider details as the ongoing Newsweek account, but don't stop reading yet. The Nov. 17 essay is a thinking man's expose of how Barack cruised to victory. Lizza evaluates Obama's management skills, terming him a man "not without an ego." It was precisely because he thought he knew better than everyone, Lizza writes, that he picked the right team to lead him to the White House. After the jump, the best tidbits about Barack the Boss.
It's good to know the president-elect thinks as highly of himself as his supporters do:
Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign’s political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director." After Obama’s first debate with McCain, on September 26th, Gaspard sent him an e-mail. "You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,” he wrote. Obama replied, "Just give me the ball."
This carried over to the people Barack surrounded himself with. Lizza quotes Barack telling communications director Dan Pfeiffer that "what I want around me are people who are calm, who don’t get too high and don’t get too low, because that’s how I am." This soothing tone carried over to every part of the campaign, says speechwriter Jon Favreau:
"Even during tough times, everyone sticks together. There are not a lot of Washington assholes on this campaign." Alyssa Mastromonaco, the director of scheduling and advance, who had also worked for Kerry in 2004, said that she had some trouble getting used to the quieter vibe of the Obama operation. “When I first started on the campaign, at the very beginning of this one, I was one of the only people who had actually done a Presidential before,” Mastromonaco, who is thirty-two, told me. “And so we were on some conference call, and I was just completely irritated by something someone was saying. After the call, they came in and were, like, ‘Alyssa, this is a campaign where you need to respect other people’s opinions and you can’t be a bitch.’ I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, these guys are serious!’"
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, Alyssa.
Battle Plans [The New Yorker]
When I moved to New York, I had no idea that it was going to be im-fucking-possible to get a decent night's sleep, ever. I also have the frequent urge to retreat to a dark room and curl up in the fetal position whenever I'm in the city--but don't we all? Still, I never imagined paying for a nap in a special, quiet, warm, nap-pod. Nor could anyone imagine that this early-mid 00's trend would still be kicking it!
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