True Confessions From the Trail

"Our strategic challenge," Schmidt said, was "the equivalent of throwing a football through a tire at 50 yards: It's doable theoretically, but it is very difficult and it needs a little bit of luck."

Plouffe readily agreed. "There's no doubt," he said, "the football-through-the-tire analogy is the right one."

Schmidt spoke openly of McCain's reluctant choice of Palin after hopes of running with former Democrat Joe Lieberman were scuttled by the right, which threatened a convention floor fight. "That would have had the effect of blowing up the Republican Party," he said, "and when you look at all the challenges we had during the 2008 election cycle, blowing up the party wasn't one of the menu items of things that were going to improve our situation."

Schmidt expanded on his earlier support for same-sex civil unions ("I believe people are born with their sexuality"), joked about the GOP leadership vacuum ("this 'Lord of the Flies' period"), mocked the party's presidential strategy ("Hold the South and we'll spend $80 million trying to flip Ohio") and celebrated Obama's "once-in-a-generation" political skills ("This was, in my view, the unfinished Bobby Kennedy campaign").

He willingly accepted responsibility for denying Palin the right to speak on election night, because "if you lose, the concession speech is a singular moment" that "acknowledges the legitimacy of the victory and refreshes, if you will, the constitutional order."

Whatever that fluid was on the stage, the Obama administration may want to bottle it. Schmidt even tossed the president laurels for his first months in office. "As a political proposition, his first 100 days have been successful," he said. "His approval rating is in the 60s, there has been dramatic improvement in the 'right track' number, he's had success . . . at passing legislation, and the Republican Party as a matter of reality in the first 100 days has not done anything to improve its political condition."

The confessions done, Schmidt and Plouffe walked together to the back of the auditorium -- up the left aisle. "He converted me," Schmidt explained.