The unsung hero of the Obama campaign is David Plouffe, the campaign manager - although Plouffe is so famously 'unsung' that the adjective is becoming a little moot.
He does keep a low profile, rarely appearing on TV or doing on-the-record interviews. But in the wake of Obama's extraordinary victory over Clinton people are starting to acclaim the central role he played in building, pretty much from scratch, what Obama has credibly hailed as 'the best political organisation in the country'.
If Obama is about inspiration, vision, and rhetoric, Plouffe is a data man. Whether it's politics or baseball, Plouffe plunges into the numbers and comes up with plans and predictions. He likes nothing more than a good spreadsheet.
Indeed, a Plouffe spreadsheet played quite a critical role in the nomination race.
Right up until February, much of the media - and Clinton's campaign - were assuming that the race would be settled the normal way, with one candidate developing such overwhelming momentum that the other would be forced to drop out before the spring. Few had looked closely at the likely outcomes of all the remaining primaries and caucuses. Even fewer had calculated how the allocation of pledged delegates would unfold. But Plouffe had. He had a spreadsheet. It showed state-by-state projections of the likely margins of Obama's victories and losses in the remaining states, and demonstrated that Obama might well finish the race with a small but significant lead in pledged delegates.
When Obama came out of Super Tuesday slightly behind Clinton, Plouffe leaked the spreadsheet to the media. It helped to shape a new consensus that this was now a pitched battle for pledged delegates, and that Obama's strength in upcoming states might see him overtake Clinton. Superdelegates who had been considering an early endorsement of Clinton thought again. The spreadsheet lit Obama's path to victory.
Not only that, but we can now appreciate the extent of Plouffe's prescience. Of the 27 projections he made, he got only three wrong: he predicted wins in Indiana and South Dakota which Obama lost, and a loss in Maine, which Obama won narrowly. His delegate projections look even more impressive: he predicted that Obama would end up with 1683 pledged delegates, and that Clinton would accumlate 1551. The actual tallies are 1704 for Obama and 1553 for Clinton.
Not bad for a nerd.
David Plouffe has indeed been a wizard with numbers. Hillary Clinton may have won slightly more popular votes than Barack Obama (the 18 million cracks in the glass feeling she referred to) but this Democratic primary eventually turned on the pledged delegates.
Posted by: Candadai Tirumalai | June 11, 2008 at 02:22 PM
Thanks Candadai. I'm not sure that Clinton beat Obama in the popular vote. There are several ways to measure this (with/without Michigan, etc) and only if you use the methods most favourable to Clinton does she win. On the simplest measure (all votes cast everywhere) Obama edges it.
Posted by: marbury | June 11, 2008 at 02:47 PM
The fact that he was only 2 delegates out on the Clinton numbers is just scary and also debunks the remarks of Obama limping to the end or Clinton improving towards the end.
also,is it that he is a little further out on the Obama number due to the Edwards endorsment and subsequent switching of delegates
Posted by: fleety3000 | June 12, 2008 at 12:32 AM
Marbury: You are right that the popular vote varies depending on how it is counted. Michigan and Florida became news in this Democratic primary for rather unusual reasons.
Posted by: Candadai Tirumalai | June 12, 2008 at 02:41 PM
we may judge a man’s ability by three things ：by what he has done （including the impression he has made on others ），by what he himself appears to believe he can do ，by our own dramatic imagination ，based on his immediate personality ，of what he might do． If these do not agree it is prudent to observe him further．
Posted by: Nike Shox Rivalry | September 23, 2010 at 10:44 AM