Confidence, calm were key to Obama's success
Candidate 'simply fit the time very well'
Until one night in Charleston, S.C., 10 months ago, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were just shadowboxing, politely charting separate paths to the Democratic nomination. Clinton was the establishment choice, next in line, the clear favorite. Obama was the political upstart who dared challenge convention.
Their worldviews finally clashed in a July 23 debate at the Citadel. Asked whether he would meet unconditionally with leaders of rogue nations, Obama said yes. Clinton read it as an "ah-ha" moment revealing his fatal flaws: inexperience on the world stage, and a misunderstanding of how Washington worked. Surely, she figured, the Obama fad would fade as he stumbled. But Obama stood his ground and never looked back. He responded coolly and forcefully to Clinton's criticism, calling her "Bush-Cheney lite."
The episode helps explain how Obama, a 46-year-old first-term senator not four years out of the Illinois General Assembly, pulled off the feat of capturing his party's presidential nomination. Displaying preternatural self-assurance and confidence in his game plan - especially in the rocky weeks this spring when it looked as if his star was dimming - Obama proved he could be uplifting, resilient, and tough when he had to.
Clinton and her campaign, meanwhile, mistook Obama's embrace of hope for timidity and lack of substance, and they failed to fully grasp two key things: the yearning for a clean break from the politics of the past and the extent to which voters believed she embodied those politics. What Clinton and her aides repeatedly tried to dismiss as a mere infatuation was in fact a lasting and resonant movement for change.
"He was the change candidate in a change election," said Tad Devine, a veteran Democratic political strategist who helped run the presidential campaigns of Senator John F. Kerry and Al Gore. "This is a guy who has simply fit the time very well."
Critically, Obama got the tangibles right, too, assembling fund-raising and organizational machines unmatched in the history of American politics.
Foremost, his campaign built a donor base of more than 1.5 million people, raising an eye-popping $265 million over 14 months. His fund-raising strength served notice early on that, although he began far back in the polls, he would never be an underdog financially. That allowed him to spread his message widely through TV and radio advertising, something analysts said would be prohibitively expensive given how many states would be in play during the primary.
Obama also paired a grass-roots army with a well-oiled campaign machine - led by hard-nosed veterans of Democratic politics and political organizing - run from the 11th floor of a sleek Chicago high-rise. The marriage of those two power centers allowed Obama to craft a blueprint - based on polling, voter data, and carefully constructed media and ad messages - and apply it effectively on the ground.
Novel get-out-the-vote plans targeted not just traditional Democratic constituencies, but independents, Republicans, and high school students; Internet-driven networking tools encouraged supporters to stay connected and recruit their friends; and legions of trained, excited volunteers felt empowered to, in Obama's words, "be the change" they sought.
The work paid off handsomely in states everyone knew would matter - such as Iowa - and states no one thought would, such as Kansas, Nebraska, and Mississippi. From Super Tuesday, on Feb. 5, to March 4, Obama went on a 10-and-0 romp through states Clinton all but ignored, building a lead in pledged delegates that would become insurmountable.
That momentum became a campaign-saving buffer when Obama struggled through March and April, when Clinton won key primaries in Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania and Obama faced two serious obstacles: the emergence of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his fiery former pastor whose caustic criticism of the United States looped endlessly on TV, and Obama's ill-chosen comments at a San Francisco fund-raiser about "bitter" small-town residents who "cling to guns or religion."
The controversies over Wright and Obama's "bitter" remarks - together with Clinton's margins among white, working-class voters - threatened to destroy what became Obama's electability argument to voters and superdelegates.
For months, Democratic voters had told pollsters that Clinton was their best hope against the Republicans. But many came to view Obama as the stronger competitor, partly based on his appeal to independents and Republicans - especially after Senator John McCain of Arizona, who promises a strong fight for independents and even Democrats, emerged as the presumptive GOP nominee. In late January, a USA Today/Gallup poll indicated that most Democrats felt Clinton had a better chance in November; three weeks later, the same poll suggested that Democrats considered Obama more electable by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Amid Obama's setbacks, his resiliency and his supporters' steadfastness became apparent: His standing in polls did not dip much; donations poured in; superdelegates continued endorsing him; and the candidate, even in the depths of the Wright crisis, kept his cool.
"We knew it was a firestorm, but he was very focused, and that's been true throughout," said Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod.
And though Obama ran a disciplined campaign, avoiding major scandals and staff shake-ups, there were challenges.
His effort to present his biracial, multinational upbringing as a credential for dealing with people of all backgrounds led to accusations by some that he was too identified with the black community, and by others that he was not faithful enough to the black community. His appeals to young voters alienated older ones who felt his campaign lacked gravity. And his sometimes sanctimonious approach to character and ethics invited charges of hypocrisy.
Like many Democrats, Obama learned from Senator John F. Kerry's experience in 2004 the perils of a slow-footed response to attacks. Obama's campaign answered forcefully to broadsides from Clinton's camp, sometimes responding within hours to Clinton's TV ads with ads of its own. Obama was especially effective at turning slights from Clinton against her, as in March, when he ridiculed suggestions that he would make a good running mate.
"If I was in second place right now, I'd understand it. But I'm in first place right now," Obama told voters in Mississippi, and the exchange led to an embarrassing news cycle for Clinton.
With Obama and Clinton sharing many policy views, Obama's campaign successfully turned the primary into a referendum on his rival's experience and character, forcing her to confront questions about her truthfulness and candor. Obama painted her Washington tenure, which she pitched as an asset, as a liability, convincing voters that she could not build the bipartisan, transparent government he could.
This bore out a calculation that Obama's top advisers made when they first sketched out his campaign. They knew that Clinton, though respected in the party, was also polarizing. The question was whether, in a crowded primary field, Obama could position himself as that choice. Former senator John Edwards of North Carolina sought the role, too, but Obama outlasted him by building a broader base of supporters. The space became his to fill.
Axelrod, Obama's chief strategist, said Clinton's mistake was to position herself as the "quintessential Washington insider."
The general election, of course, presents an entirely new landscape. Obama's message of change - particularly on national security - will be tested like never before. Obama, after all, was just a boy when McCain was being tortured in a North Vietnamese prison. Under fierce attack from McCain for his willingness to negotiate with outcast regimes, he has sought to qualify the self-assured answer he gave in last year's debate.
But Obama begins the general election campaign as the favorite in many polls, a sign of just how far he has come in the nearly four years since he first introduced himself to the country with his stirring speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Back then he swatted away suggestions about running for president. Since he began embracing them, in 2006, his ascent has surprised even the most veteran political observers.
During his rise, two defining magazine profiles stand out. Within weeks of each other in the spring of 2007, The New Yorker ran a piece called "The Conciliator" about Obama's unifying power, and The New Republic ran a piece called "The Agitator" about his willingness to employ bare-knuckle politics to advance his agenda.
Melding those two aspects of his character has, at least to this point, made Barack Obama difficult to stop.
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com. 