Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser - How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election

A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, JANUARY 2009

Copyright 2009 by Chuck Todd and Sheldon R. Gawiser Ph.D.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data for How Barack Obama Won has been filed at the Library of Congress.

eISBN: 978-0-345-80482-2

Book design by Cathryn S. Aison and Claudia Martinez

Cover design by John Gall

www.vintagebooks.com

v3.1

This book is dedicated to Tim Russert,
student, colleague, friend, and mentor.
We really miss you, Tim.
Go Bills!!

I knew Tim Russert longer than anyone else at NBC News; he was a student of mine at John Carroll University. At that time, while there was a lot of unrest on campuses across the country, at John Carroll the problem was getting the students to challenge professors in class, getting them to ask pointed questions. That was never a problem with Tim. We always assumed he would become a litigator.

A week or two before the 2000 election, Tim came to me and wanted to know what the chances were that one candidate would get a majority of the electoral votes and another candidate would win the popular vote. We discussed that possibility, and Tim promised to buy me a new Mercedes if I managed to get that result. A week after the election, I went to my local dealer and got an invoice for a new car and sent it to Tim. He immediately responded that the car was in the works and that a John Carroll man always keeps his word.

In mid-December, a package arrived at my house from Tim. Inside was a toy Mercedes sedan, with the Gore and Bush electoral votes painted on the doors and the Gore margin in the popular vote on the trunk. His note read, Here it is. A brand-new Mercedes with all the relevant data. A John Carroll man always keeps his word. Happy New Year, Tim.

I last saw Tim the night of the June 3 primaries. He was having the time of his life with this never-ending primary season. While all of us were exhausted, the extended coverage pleased him no end. What a time he would have had at the conventions and during this campaign.

But while most people knew the public Tim, for those of us who worked with him, he was more than a colleague. He never missed asking about my boys and telling me the latest story about his son, Luke. And when my grandson arrived, he added Zac to the conversation. When my wife was ill, he made sure that she was in his prayers. I like to think the reason the Bills are doing much better this year is that Tim is looking out for them.

I may be the polar opposite of Sheldon in that I may have known Tim for less time than anyone else at NBC News, the short 15 months I spent working with him. And yet, the fact that I got to work so closely with him during this campaign, spent time on the campaign trail with him, had him let me in on the joke that is this business sometimes, is 15 months Id never trade for the world.

There was nothing more challenging than trying to tell Tim something that he didnt know already. Yet he always wanted to know more, and there was no more rewarding feeling than giving him a tidbit that he hadnt known. I sure hope there are a few tidbits in here hell want to use. He was a heckuva role model in many ways. I kinda feel like Clete Boyer, the not so well-known third baseman for the New York Yankees in the early 1960s. Because the one thing you cant take away from Boyer is this: he got to bat in the same lineup as Mickey Mantle. Well, I got to work with Tim Russert for a brief period of time; you cant take that away from me. So, Tim, because Shelly couldnt get you those exit polls in November, we figured why not a full-fledged book; so you can devour the data as you configure that whiteboard for 2012 and beyond.

We want to express our gratitude to Ana Maria Arumi and Evans Witt. Without their thoughtful analysis and persistence, this book would not have been possible.

The authors would like to thank all our colleagues at NBC News for their hard work and support during this intense political campaign, from the front office to the specials unit to the fine folks at the key NBC News programs covering politics, as well as the place for politics itself, MSNBC. We would have lost the little sanity we have left without their assistance. We would also like to thank our families for putting up with us all year long and particularly during the writing of this book that took place after we had promised that the election insanity would end.

Chuck would like to thank, in particular, the NBC News political unit, specifically Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, Carrie Dann, and Abby Livingston. The four of them had the thankless job of reading Chucks mind when he would make semirandom requests about lists of this voting group or that bunch of states. Not only did Mark, Dom, Carrie, and Abby read Chucks mind with ease, they will notice how much of their research inspired many parts of this tome. Chuck would also like to single out Sheldon for being an incredible writing partner in this project. We were brought together in some trying circumstances and grew to more than tolerate each other. Its been an honor to learn from and work with Sheldon, and the rest of the NBC elections teams.

Sheldon would especially like to thank Phil Alongi, Cliff Kappler, and particularly Katie Primm for their help and guidance throughout this crazy year at NBC News. In addition, our decision and poll analysis team made election nights tolerable. Chuck had a very tough task in a tough year, and he had to step into some very large shoes this summer. I would also like to thank Naomi Gawiser for taking on the completely thankless job of editing this material. It is a wonder she can still read after many hours looking for our all too many mistakes.

And thanks to the great staff at Vintage Books, led by our editor Erroll McDonald. He came to us late in the election season and somehow talked us into a crazy writing and publishing schedule. And then theres our agent, Matthew Carnicelli, who probably thought hed never get Chuck to meet these audacious deadlines. Then again, he never realized how Sheldon doesnt like to miss deadlines.

Finally, we would like to thank our Founding Fathers, who, when writing the Constitution, designed the most interesting and complex political system possible. Of course, they had no idea that was what they were doing. The law of unintended consequences proven once again.

So how does one sum up the 2008 presidential campaign in just 12,000 words? Who is arrogant enough to think he or she can capture precisely the historical nature of this campaign and election, at a time when the nation seems vulnerable on so many fronts?

Its possible a historian 50 years from now might be able truly to understand what happened and why the country was ready to break through the color barrier, particularly if said historian looks at the 2008 election through the prism of postCold War America.

Since 1992, the country has witnessed nearly two decades of political tumult of a kind it has experienced only once or twice a century. Right now, the country is so enamored with the fact that weve broken the political color barrier of the American presidency that we havent stepped back and appreciated just what a wild political ride our country has been on.