Thursday, November 13, 2008

"Just Give Me the Ball"

I was just starting to come off my post-election high when I read this amazing paragraph from Ryan Lizza's profile of the Obama campaign in this week's New Yorker:

Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign’s political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, “I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.” After Obama’s first debate with McCain, on September 26th, Gaspard sent him an e-mail. “You are more clutch than Michael Jordan,” he wrote. Obama replied, “Just give me the ball.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'll give you, Josh, that's the best bit from the whole article. But here's my second favorite part:

"Furman, glancing at a television, saw McCain walking up to a lectern; a caption at the bottom of the screen said that he was suspending his campaign and might not attend the first debate. When Furman told Obama what McCain was doing, Obama used a salty expression to describe the move and hung up the phone."

Hmmm, I can only imagine what sort of "salty" expression Obama used...