Word: clinton
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...Iowa playbook, as everyone now knows, hasn't always worked. In Texas, for instance, the grassroots operation counted on more African-American voters than actually turned out. In California, organizers expected more young voters. But while Obama rarely managed a clean win against Clinton in the big states - the ones that will count most in the fall - he kept winning delegates even when he lost primaries. By April, it became almost mathematically impossible for Clinton to catch...
...Obama become the first Democratic insurgent in a generation or more to knock off the party's Establishment front-runner? Facing an operation as formidable as Clinton's, Obama says in an interview, "was liberating ... What I'd felt was that we could try some things in a different way and build an organization that reflected my personality and what I thought the country was looking for. We didn't have to unlearn a bunch of bad habits...
...wins that followed. It was also a challenge to history. The iron rule of Iowa had always been that caucusgoers tended to look the same year in and year out: older people, union households, party stalwarts - just the kind of folks who would seem more inclined to back Clinton or John Edwards - trudging out into the cold night for a few hours of political conversation. Instead, Obama saw the Iowa caucuses as a chance to put a stake through Clinton's inevitability. "Mission No. 1 was finishing ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa," recalls Obama campaign manager David Plouffe...
...contrast, the Clinton campaign, which started out with superior resources and the mantle of inevitability, was a top-down operation in which decision-making rested with a small coterie of longtime aides. Her state organizers often got mixed signals from the headquarters near Washington. Decisions from Hillaryland often came too late for her field organization to execute. Obama's bottom-up philosophy also helps explain why he was able to sweep the organization-heavy caucus states, which were so crucial to building up his insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. What was not appreciated by many at the time: while Clinton...
...Like the team around Bush, Obama's is watertight. Leaks are rare, and for all the millions Obama has raked in, Plouffe keeps a sharp eye on where it is going. Consider the salaries: Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson was paid almost twice as much in a month - $266,000 went to his firm, according to her January campaign filing - as the $144,000 that Obama paid Gibbs for all of last year. Obama staffers are expected to double up in hotel rooms when they are on the road and are reimbursed by the campaign if they take the subway (about...