Power Forward : My Presidential Education (9781476763361)

by Love, Reggie

  For months after, I would tease the senator with “Man, I cannot believe you ate that sandwich.”

  And he would smile and say, “Nobody can ever say I didn’t want to win.”

  I’m pretty sure no other candidates were eating loose meat sandwiches. Senator Clinton probably didn’t feel like she had to—everybody was predicting that she would be the nominee. At this point Obama was still very much the underdog, and feeling the pinch. For example, unlike what was rumored to be going on with other campaign staffs, there was a maximum salary on the Obama for America campaign of $150,000 for any employee, no matter how high-ranking. It was done for budget reasons. The Obama campaign had started from scratch. It depended on our people being young and hungry and motivated. Inside and outside the campaign, we were appealing to the heart. We sensed a shift coming, but we couldn’t be certain. And then the Harkin Steak Fry happened on September 16, 2007.

  The Harkin Steak Fry is held every primary season in Indianola, Iowa. The who’s who of Iowa politics shows up, and the whole premise of the event is that it is a fundraiser for Senator Tom Harkin. But it is really a chance for the caucus-goers to check out the candidates in the middle of the primary race. Thousands of people pay $30 a ticket to come to Indianola, which is about an hour and a half south of Des Moines. The event is pretty much the Iowa State Fair of politics, with the candidates acting as the livestock vying for the blue ribbon.

  The Obama Iowa team had organized a pre-rally outside the gates before the steak fry. Thousands of people turned up to back the candidate. Far more than most had even imagined would show. When you looked out over the crowd, all you could see was a sea of “Hope” signs and the soon-to-be iconic Obama “O.” It looked like a red, white, and blue crop. The sight was astonishing. I remember thinking then, for the first time, Barack Obama will win this state!

  The other politicians at the steak fry thought so too. It was a clear turning point in the race because no one had ever seen anything like it. All the other attendees were kind of surreptitiously peering over the fence, gobsmacked.

  The senator waded through the giant crowd literally buoyed by a sea of support. Unlike any of the other politicians in attendance, who stood apart on a separate stage, Obama kept walking with the people, but he made his way through the entire throng. It was like a scene from Rudy. I bet he would have swallowed a thousand loose meat sandwiches to make that happen. Thankfully, he didn’t have to. But his willingness and gameness struck me. If you want to realize your dream, it helps to have an iron stomach.

  Which brings me to Amana, Iowa. A town of many fine qualities—organic, healthy dining options not among them.

  A little history about Amana. It is one of seven towns that make up the Amana Colonies, a historical community formed by German immigrants who were escaping persecution in the 1800s. Those early homesteaders prided themselves on maintaining an almost completely self-sufficient local economy. So a hundred-plus years later, when the Obama campaign rolled into town, I looked at a menu of the one main local restaurant and surmised that they had been serving the same food since they founded the colonies. Find an animal, kill it, bread it, and fry it.

  When the candidate and crew were departing Amana after the last event of the evening, preparing to head to another small town and another Motel 6, the candidate looked over to me and asked in a famished voiced, “So, Reggie, what’s for dinner?”

  When he asked the question, it quickly brought me back to the countless times when Coach K had grilled me during film sessions, his laser pointer following my image across the big screen, with everyone on the team watching along. “Reggie, what exactly are you thinking on this play?” he’d ask. It was technically a question, but a question with no right answer, and the moment it was sprung on me, I knew whatever I was about to say was going to be all kinds of wrong.

  It was with that same sinking feeling washing over me that I responded to the candidate, “Sir, we have a choice between fried pork tenderloin sandwich and fried walleye.”

  I explained that the fried fish was the local favorite, and people from all the surrounding colonies came to this restaurant for the fried walleye. He ate the walleye. Unhappily. But its relative awfulness became a reference point for the rest of campaign. Anytime I delivered him a dubious meal, he’d say, “At least it’s not fried walleye.”

  Like the day in the suburbs of Detroit when the only thing I could find was a Wendy’s chicken sandwich, extra mayo. It was better than the walleye, but it didn’t keep the candidate from giving me his take on fast food and how not only should he not be eating it, but neither should I.

  “That stuff will kill you,” he lectured.

  “Even the McNuggets?”

  “Reggie. You won’t be young forever.”

  The fast-food debate lasted throughout the whole campaign (and into the presidency, during which Marvin and I insisted on eating at McDonald’s in every foreign country we visited). Like our early morning workouts, the running argument about food seemed trivial on the surface, but it, too, provided building blocks in our boss-employee relationship. Lots of people were responsible for various critical aspects of Obama’s campaign, but food is a nonnegotiable need. Without fuel, the engine stops running. Food can also be a comfort. Which, in the midst of a punishing campaign, can be hard to come by and as vital as anything else. This was never made more clear than after a long day in Los Angeles and Seattle.

  It was December 2007. We’d had an especially long and difficult two days in Los Angeles, during which we were perpetually running late. On the second day, right before a Latino luncheon, Robert Gibbs started yelling at me about time management: “Why the hell is he late?”

  As I tried to explain, the candidate came up and added his two cents, complaining that the schedule was jacked up and that he shouldn’t be put in that situation.

  So I tried to fix the lineup—moving calls to the car, shortening other events—because I didn’t want to be the reason the candidate was an hour overdue at every other scheduled event that day.

  The Latino leaders lunch was set for fifteen minutes, but given that we were already more than twenty minutes behind, it was looking more and more like a train wreck in the making. I warned the candidate, “Look, you can’t stay here for more than twenty minutes, because we have a long day ahead and the schedule is very tight.”

  He just shrugged at me and said, “We’ll shave time off the fundraiser.”

  That didn’t happen.

  The Latino event ran almost an hour. And the fundraiser went overtime. Which meant the candidate was beyond tardy for the conference call with African-American CEOs. To add lightning to the storm, after twelve minutes of trying, I couldn’t get the phone to connect, so the CEOs were literally left hanging, and it was then that Obama turned to me and said through tight teeth, “Reggie, this is messed up.”

  And I, cracking from the day and the stress and the hours still left to go, stupidly replied, “Well, if you didn’t stay so long at the luncheon, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

  The air went still. It was like that eerie calm before a tornado swoops in and levels your entire house. Nobody said anything.

  “Marvin,” Obama finally said. “Talk to Reggie because I am not having this conversation with him.”

  So Marvin schooled me. After he had finished showing me the error of my ways, the other shoe dropped, and it was a jackboot. The candidate asked for his lunch.

  “You got my taquitos, Reggie?” he inquired wearily.

  Taquitos had been served up at the Latino leaders luncheon. Obama, of course, had either been working the room, giving a talk, or fielding questions, which never left him time to grab a bite to eat. I knew the bag of taquitos I’d been handed hours ago had long since gotten cold, so I hadn’t bothered to bring it when we headed to catch the plane to Seattle.

  “I left the taquitos at the venue, sir,” I confessed. “I assumed you wouldn’t want them; they were three hours old.”

  O
bama looked at me with blank disbelief. I might as well have left his bag in the car again. I apologized, but the pin had been pulled on the grenade. We were way behind schedule; he was tired and hungry. And once again, I had failed at my job.

  By the time the plane landed in Seattle, Marvin had made his best suggestion of the campaign: find the finest taquitos in the state of Washington. Admittedly, Seattle isn’t as well known for its Mexican food as LA, but I found an adequate Mexican restaurant and got every type of taquitos they made.

  Later that night, we drove to the last of three evening events, a forty-five-minute trip. I was sitting in the back of the Suburban, with the senator in the middle captain’s chair, and Marvin up front in the passenger seat. When the senator asked what we had to eat, I started going through the usual list.

  “We have some grilled chicken, we have grilled salmon . . .”

  He interrupted me, shook his head, and said with obvious disappointment, “The same stuff?”

  Then, as Marvin held up a large bag, I replied, “And, we have some . . . taquitos!”

  He looked like he’d won the lottery. We all started laughing hysterically. Anyone looking in through the window would have presumed we were crazy. We probably were.

  I earned some respect that day and I grew a bit on two counts. First, accountability: you make a mistake, you own it, and you do what you can to correct it—no matter how trifling the mistake may seem. I did just that. And the senator respected the move. Second, and perhaps more important: no matter how bad things felt, we all knew they could be worse. So if it was in our power to make them a bit better, we did. I made a habit of focusing on the silver lining. A crappy hotel gym was better than no gym. A delayed meal was better than no meal. And a mistake that yields a lesson is an opportunity.

  As Obama enjoyed his taquitos dinner, all was forgiven. I knew it hadn’t been the best twenty-four hours. But it hadn’t been the worst either. I’d been in tougher situations before. And I had survived. As I would have occasion to say numerous times on the campaign trail: at least it wasn’t fried walleye.

  14

  * * *

  * * *

  LET THE BEAR OUT OF THE CAGE

  * * *

  * * *

  Politics is a dance to a song that never ends. Those who excel at what is truly a blood sport are those who eat, sleep, and breathe the beast. A campaign necessitates an almost pathological single-mindedness from all its participants—everyone from personal aide all the way up the chain of command to communication director to trip director to campaign manager, to the candidate. As Obama himself said, “In politics there may be second acts, but there is no second place.”

  If you sign on, you are signing up for eighteen-hour days. Forget weekends, Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s. Forget, too, your mental health, your diet, and your romantic relationships. Oh, and check your pride at the door. The time commitment is so punishing and abnormal that it makes NFL training camp look like an Easter egg hunt.

  At any moment you might find yourself looking in the mirror and asking WTF you are doing with your life. Pressures weigh most acutely on the candidate. Which is why, sometimes, you need to let the bear out of the cage.

  * * *

  Late in February of 2008, we were traveling from Houston, Texas, to Brownsville. It was a day when the candidate was sapped. When that happened, Alyssa Mastromonaco’s scheduling team decided to implement something called “BO time,” a little window on the schedule where the senator could collect himself. A ten-minute reprieve from jumping on phone calls or giving interviews after a big rally or town hall. Sometimes there were unforeseen delays, events that ran long, or an emergency event that could only be handled by the candidate, but Marvin and I always tried like hell to protect BO time.

  As we drove through Brownsville after a particularly fiery speech, the candidate overheard Marvin talking about a local celebration called the Sombrero Festival.

  “Pull the car over,” Obama directed.

  “Sir, we aren’t scheduled for a stop with Secret Service—” Marvin tried, but he was interrupted by the candidate.

  “Pull over,” the senator repeated. “I want to check out the Sombrero Festival. They’ve probably got some great food there.”

  Secret Service pulled over. And before we could count to ten, the candidate was out of the vehicle and absorbed into a massive crowd of people. He waded through the hordes, stopping at food booths, ogling the piñatas and sombreros, and giving the Secret Service multiple coronaries as he did.

  Marvin just looked at me, shrugged, and said, “The bear is out of the cage. Somebody go get the tranquilizer gun.”

  The way I saw it, Obama not only needed a dose of freedom, he wanted to concretely reiterate that he was running the show. He wanted all of us to know that he was not a puppet. Not for the campaign. And not for anyone who thought they could wrangle him to do their bidding.

  After the Sombrero Fest excursion, whenever Obama wanted to make an “off the record stop” (OTR) Marvin and I would promptly say in unison, “The bear is loose.”

  This happened early in the presidency, on his first international trip, to Ottawa, Canada, when Marvin made the mistake of suggesting a regional pastry treat called a Beaver Tail.

  “Let’s get one!” Obama said. And again, we were off to the races, the President unleashed, mobbed by the public like a rock star.

  The Secret Service was so tweaked about the Beaver Tail stop that when we got back to the White House the next day, they sat down Marvin, the scheduling team, and me, and said, “If we ever do that again, there will be some real problems. And none of us will have jobs.”

  With the senator, there were always internal conversations and strife about doing public versus private events; how he was meant to interface with a city, state, or country that he was visiting for the first time.

  Everyone had his or her own thoughts on what the strategy should be. The schedule was an iron triangle, the three sides consisting of mental health, physical health, and campaigning. There were only twenty-four hours in a day. How much of each of the three could you squeeze in? All the players, from Axelrod to family to press to staff to anyone with advice to give, encouraged or not, wanted their piece of the hourly pie.

  For me, the most important thing was making sure the candidate got some rest. To be clear, no one was rested. The trick was not to push too far into exhaustion. Without a bare minimum of sleep came the slips of the tongue. The mistakes. Interviews were not going to be as effective if he wasn’t sleeping at least a few hours. The aim was for five a night.

  During the campaign, there was this big debate about whether or not to have a phone put on the aircraft. Eventually the phone arrived, but the senator didn’t like using it. The connection was bad. And ultimately, midair calls were of such low quality they weren’t worth making. Never mind that after seven events in one day, he didn’t want to experience that frustration during the only free hour he had.

  Juliana Smoot, our sweet-but-tough finance director from North Carolina, would ask, “How many calls did you make from the plane today?” (The phone had been her idea. A way to keep fundraising every spare second.)

  I’d answer, “We tried, we really did.”

  Smoot was no dummy. She sensed our duplicity. The thing was, to stay sane, we all had to grab any break available. Like I did during a particularly grueling stint on the campaign trail in the winter of 2007 when I became the bear who needed to break out of the cage.

  We were in Seattle, and all of us were feeling beaten up and frayed. It struck me like a lightning bolt that a trip to the tattoo parlor would be just the ticket to turn the momentum. (I’m no statistician, but I’d venture a large majority of the decisions to get a tattoo are made with a similar lack of foresight.)

  So I made certain the senator had everything he needed for the night, then found Marvin and announced, “I’m going to get a tattoo.”

  “You’re what?” He blinked, taken aback
.

  “I’m getting inked. I found this place called Under the Needle, and I’m going. You in?”

  “One hundred percent.” Which I didn’t then and still don’t think was true. I think he came along out of some parental instinct. Perhaps he had visions of my return looking like Mike Tyson, with an eye and neck tattoo or some sort of infection that would have left him responsible for doing my job. Regardless, I was grateful for the company.

  We left the Westin Hotel at 1 A.M., grabbed a taxi, and arrived at the tattoo parlor to find the door locked. The sign read “Open,” so I knocked on the door repeatedly.

  After a few minutes, a grunged-out guy emerged from the alley hoisting a giant ladder and said, “Yo! Cut it out.”

  I explained I wanted to get a tattoo, that, yes, we knew what time it was, but that given our schedules 1 A.M. was the only free time we had.

  The guy replied, slightly out of breath, “I’m D.Z. This is my place.” Then he explained to Marvin and me that he’d locked himself out of his shop and that the ladder that was propped against the building on a Seattle-like incline—which was clearly three feet short of the second-floor window—was his way back in.

  Not exactly confidence-building. But we pressed on, helping him break into his own joint, climbing two stories up into an open window that the ladder barely reached. It was like Super Mario Bros., tattoo edition.

  Not long after we busted in, I got my first tattoos. I went with: “My Word, My Bond,” on the inside of my right arm. And “My Boyz, My Blood,” in the same spot on my left.