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After One of Campaign's Roughest Patches, Obama Tried to Change the Narrative
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A campaign that had stumbled out of Pennsylvania six days earlier was again thrown into crisis mode just as it was gaining momentum. That night, at Chapel Hill's genteel Carolina Inn, Obama pored over the transcripts of Wright's appearance, watched the ubiquitous replays on cable news, and jotted down the notes for an address that would come the following day -- far too late for some voters, especially in Indiana, but perhaps enough to help salvage a win in North Carolina.
Obama has tended to be detached from day-to-day campaign operations. He attended only a handful of fundraising events between Jan. 1 and Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, and few since his losses in Texas and Ohio on March 4. Cassandra Q. Butts, a law school friend and domestic policy adviser, recalled a time when she phoned him after reading ABC News's the Note, a daily political blog frequented by Washington insiders. His response: "Why are you focusing on that, Cassandra?"
"He's involved in macro things, okay?" Plouffe said before the Texas and Ohio primaries. "When we say we're going to these five states, he's not interested in whether we're going to Boise or Pocatello."
After Pennsylvania, Obama was determined to take control of the message. And he followed through -- with breakfasts in union halls, a family farm visit in Union Mills, Ind., a lunch of Subway sandwiches with the Fischers of Beech Grove, Ind. But his former pastor kept getting in his way.
Wright embodied nearly every doubt that any voter, friend or foe, had about Obama and his ability to be elected. He was the radical "other," the anti-messenger of the senator's once-dominant theme of race-blind, uplifting unity. As long as Obama carried Wright on his back, he could not return to the themes that had once propelled his campaign to a phenomenon.
Even before Wright's press club appearance, Obama had been hitting presumptive Republican nominee John McCain for his proposal to temporarily suspend the 18-cent federal gas tax. When Clinton embraced the "gas tax holiday," Obama's aides became convinced that a tailor-made issue had fallen into his lap, an issue that could change the subject.
Obama and Axelrod talked that Sunday and agreed that the gas tax holiday was the perfect vehicle to reintroduce Obama as the responsible reformer who refused to pander, even with a presidential election on the line.
By the time he took the stage at an 18,000-person rally in Chapel Hill on Monday night, he had sketched out his basic argument. "Gas tax holiday -- sounds good. I'm sure it polls well." But he added, "That's just politics of the moment, politics to get you through the next election. We need better leadership than that."
'Let Him Do the Talking'
Obama's opposition may have been high-minded, but it was risky for a candidate already struggling for working-class support. Campaign officials insist they did no polling on the issue before Obama staked out his stance, although it was tested heavily after the fact, in polls and focus groups. Campaign officials said the results from those surveys did not ring any alarms, although as Obama began adding references to his $1,000 middle-class tax cut proposal later in the week, to show voters he was offering a much better deal.
"The principle certainly preceded any polling, but the polling supported the principle," said Butts, the domestic policy adviser. "Good policy is good politics in this situation."
On Tuesday, Clinton aired her first ad that criticizes Obama for rejecting the gas tax holiday, and Obama advisers began debating an appropriate response. Jim Margolis, the campaign's media strategist, was screening some generic footage he had shot of Obama on Monday -- including the gas tax riff that he introduced in Wilmington, and polished throughout the day.
"As soon as we all heard it, we thought, 'We can't do better than that,' " Axelrod said. "Let him do the talking."
