The reselling of the Presdient

Look at any campaign, for student body President to the President of the United States and we see some key ingredients. The clarity and strength of the message, the quality of political organization, the discipline of the candidate, the get out the vote effort and resonance of the broader issues.

As President Obama entered his reelection campaign, a full two years before election day, by any objective standard, these things were in flux and not always for the better. 

To paraphrase his opposition, the hope and change thing wasn’t going so well.  And yet Obama would become the first president, since Ike, to be re elected with over 50% of the vote. What they did, right and wrong is the subject of Richard Wolffe’s, 2012 campaign biography The Message: The Reselling of President Obama.

My conversation with Richard Wolffe: