David Plouffe Interview

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D.P.: I wasn't in that campaign, but you hear the stories. We had three things that helped us run a very good campaign, and I think this wasn't the case for Clinton or McCain. One, we had a consistent message. What was our slogan the entire primary? "Change we can believe in." We adjusted slightly for the general—"Change we need." That didn't change. That was boring to the press, but that consistency, I think, wore well with voters. And we didn't have meetings every day about how to change our message. We had an electoral strategy, and the primary contest goal was to try to do well in the early states, and win delegates, in the general to play on the big map. We never adjusted that. And third is we didn't have that internal tension and in-fighting, so we could just focus on doing our damn jobs every day, and executing at a high level. And you're right. I've worked in a lot of campaigns and they've been great experiences, but this was by far the most collegial environment that I've worked in, and it was a real pleasure to go to work every day, and we just had a sense of mission. And that can't be overstated. There weren't a lot of closed doors where people were complaining and we were a unit. And once we made a decision, we had made a decision, and no one second-guessed it.

L.G.: Why do you think that was, David?

D.P.: I think partially the types of people that worked in this. I don't think many of us would've worked in another presidential campaign, it's not what we were looking to do. We were motivated by him. I think being in Chicago helped. I think Obama, and secondarily me, set a tone that we're not going to abide a bunch of internal fighting, we're not going to abide talking about our business to the outside world, and we're going to be strong in our opinions but we're going to respect decisions. And that was just the ethos of the organization and it made it much more effective than I think some of our opponents' campaigns for that reason.

L.G.: Did you have to drive that message home by making an example of anyone? Not to get into specific people, but did you have to fire anybody?

D.P.: Sure, well, I mean we fired people obviously, but from the very beginning we did spend some time saying, this is the way we're going to operate. We're just not going to have a bunch of the typical campaign B.S. We're not going to talk to the press about things we shouldn't talk about. We're going to respect each other and we're going to have a sense of mission. And, again, I think being an underdog helped in that regard. We had to be feisty and almost perfect to win the primary. And we weren't perfect, but we didn't have a lot of time to navel-gaze and worry about what job we were going to have in the presidential administration, because it was such a far-fetched enterprise in the beginning.

L.G.: Did you actually have a meeting where you and Obama sort of laid out the ethos of the campaign, where you said all those things explicitly?

D.P.: It wasn't a meeting. It was just a consistent and present part about how we talked about the campaign in the beginning. And so when people came on in the general election, a lot of new people came in but there was an existing ethos. So people had to kind of adapt to it, and that was a challenge obviously, because you were disrupting to some extent the great chemistry we had—but it took hold.

L.G.: How did you discipline salaries and compensation? Because traditionally, if you look at, say, Mark Penn [Hillary Clinton's chief strategist], I don't know how much Mark was pocketing but you see that they had outstanding bills approaching $10 million to him.

D.P.: People on the campaign could not make more than a certain amount—$12,000 a month. There were salary bands, so there wasn't a lot of eventfulness about what people got paid. If you were a deputy you got paid X, if you were an assistant, you got paid Y. We were very aggressive with our consultants in terms of their piece. From a fiscal management standpoint, Obama was very clear that he did not want to end up with a debt in the primary or the general, so we just planned accordingly. We didn't spend beyond our means.

L.G.: So the highest salary on the campaign was $12,000 a month?

D.P.: Pre-tax, yeah. In other campaigns, they can make a lot more than that, and people working in Senate races and governor's races made a lot more than that.

L.G.: You've made more than that.

D.P.: No doubt, it was a financial sacrifice for many on the campaign, but I think it helped. There wasn't any drama around compensation.

L.G.: What about percentages of ad buys?

D.P.: We had a cap, an aggressive arrangement—

L.G.: What did you cap it at?

D.P.: Well below industry standards.

L.G.: Because arguably, somebody could still get a very handsome fee. Say for the sake of argument, you spent $350 million on advertising. Even a niggling 1 percent of that is $3.5 million.

D.P.: That's why you have caps, so that people can't make more than a certain amount. So that if your spending does increase, their profits don't increase.

L.G.: What was the cap on that?

D.P.: I can't remember—it differed by firm based on what they were doing. But we made sure to protect ourselves. That ended up being, I think, wise, because we obviously raised a lot of money but the firms did not make more. My view of this is that working on a presidential campaign is obviously arduous but it's a unique opportunity. My view is you shouldn't have to pay market rate for people's services. And that's the general approach, and it seems to have worked out well.

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