Campaign 2012 Tidbits (7 of 16): The early Obama-Biden relationship.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 71:

For the next two months [after Obama’s VP pick in 2008], Biden and Obama rarely stumped together and barely spoke by phone, with the former shut out of [the] Chicago[  campaign headquarter]’s nightly conference calls with the latter.

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Campaign 2012 Tidbits (6 of 16): More humor from Rahm Emmanuel.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 66:

...Emmanuel referred to [Obama senior advisers Valerie] Jarrett and [Pete] Rouse as Uday and Qusay, after Saddam Hussein’s power-mad sons...

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Campaign 2012 Tidbits (5 of 16): Bill Clinton on Mitt Romney as potential threat.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 62:

“Do not underestimate how much money he’s gonna raise.  [But i]n the end,” Clinton said [to Obama representatives at a rapprochement meeting], “they’re going to figure out who he is.”

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Campaign 2012 Tidbits (4 of 16): Bill Clinton on Obama’s first term.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 59:

[Bill] Clinton was... mightily impressed by Obama’s ability to get a health initiative passed, as he himself had been unable to do.  At the same time, he was baffled by Obama’s failures at the basic blocking and tackling of politics, his insularity, his alienation of business [constituencies].  Obama got all the hard stuff right, Clinton believed, but didn’t do the easy stuff at all.

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Campaign 2012 Tidbits (3 of 16): Rahm Emmanuel snarkiness.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 54:

“Look, the dolphins will be okay for another year” was what [White House chief-of-staff Rahm] Emmanuel said about [Obama’s climate change action regrets] privately.

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Campaign 2012 Tidbits (2 of 16): Summer 2011 focus groups.

From Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Double Down – Game Change 2012 (New York: Penguin Press, 2013), p. 40:

[The perception of Obama’s weakness due to the intransigence of Congress] showed up in his campaign’s focus groups [in the summer of 2011], where a startling number of people would cite Lyndon Johnson’s ability to twist arms and get his way and ask why Obama couldn’t do the same.

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(My mom actually said this at the time!)