Game Change

Game Change by John Heilemann Page A

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Authors: John Heilemann
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before Obama would fly off on his family’s annual holiday in Hawaii, where he planned to make his final decision about running. On December 4, he traveled to New York for a meeting in the offices of billionaire financier George Soros with a dozen of New York’s heaviest Democratic fund-raisers. From there he proceeded to Washington and sought the counsel of a pair of the capital’s proverbial wise men, one a Republican and one a Democrat, one a stranger and one a friend.
    The Republican was General Colin Powell, who met with Obama at his office in Alexandria, Virginia. Obama wanted to know about Powell’s flirtation with running for the presidency in 1995. Why had he decided against it?
    “It was pretty easy,” Powell said. “I’m not a politician.”
    For the next hour, Obama quizzed Powell about foreign policy—and also about race. Did the general think the country was ready for an African American president? I think it might have been ready when I was thinking about running, Powell told Obama. It’s definitely more ready now.
    Powell had his own set of questions for Obama, but the main one was: Why now? You don’t have much of an experience base, Powell pointed out. You’re new to the Senate, you have an interesting but limited resume from before that. So, again, why now?
    I think I might have what the country needs today, not four or eight years down the line, Obama responded. I think it might be my time.
    The second wise man was Daschle. Like Bill Daley, Daschle knew the Clintons well and wasn’t afraid of them. Didn’t much like them, either. He considered Hillary an icy prima donna; her husband (who after exiting the White House often called Daschle, imploring him for help in burnishing his legacy), a narcissist on an epic scale; the dynamic between the couple, bizarre; their treatment of their friends, unforgivably manipulative and disloyal. For Daschle, Clinton fatigue wasn’t simply a political analysis. It was personal. He was bone-weary of the duo and thought that Obama could and should take them on.
    Daschle met Obama at one of his favorite restaurants, an Italian place downtown near his Washington office. The owner set up a table for them in the kitchen so their privacy would be preserved. For three hours they sat drinking red wine and talking, Obama asking question after question: about money, about the microscope he’d be under if he ran, about how great a liability his threadbare CV might be. Daschle reflected on his own contemplation of a White House bid in 2004; he’d decided against it, certain he’d have another chance to run; but now, having lost his Senate seat, that option seemed foreclosed.
    Don’t assume that you’ll get a second window, Daschle told Obama. And don’t minimize the salience of being “un-Washington”—or ignore the fact that if you wait, the next time around you won’t be un-Washington anymore.
    At the end of the meal, the two men embraced, and then Daschle headed home. His wife, Linda, asked if Tom was planning to endorse Obama if he ran. Daschle said, “What the hell—yeah, I am.”
    That weekend, Obama went on to New Hampshire, his feet making contact with Granite State soil for the first time in his life—an incredible fact for a man on the verge of entering a presidential race. The crowds that met him in Portsmouth and Manchester were, as usual, large and loud and lusty, listening eagerly as he invoked Martin Luther King, Jr., and his longtime pastor in Chicago, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. But more remarkable was the 150-strong flock of reporters, including many national big feet and thumb-suckers, credentialed for the festivities.
    Obama returned to Chicago from New Hampshire, but he wasn’t quite finished with his hyperdrive round of buzz-building. He’d begun his sprint at Saddleback with an act of outreach to one religious constituency and now he ended with a play for another: the nation’s pro-football fanatics, who were greeted with the

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