bitterlyclingin
Silver Member
- Aug 4, 2011
- 3,122
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(As well as the dirtiest, most fraudulent campaigner ever.)
"Campaign offices are typically cluttered and uncomfortable, harshly lit windowless spaces that smell like people have been sleeping under their desks. Not this one. Obama 2012 occupies an entire floor of one of downtown Chicago's gleaming sandstone towers. Spread across more than 50,000 square feet, knots of twenty-something campaign staffers sit at rows of desks that stretch almost out of sight, evoking a trade floor more than a reelection fight. "Hey everyone," I hear a field staffer barking into a speakerphone, "we're live with Marshall in Nevada. Hello?"
Tall windows look out onto Millennium Park and the blue expanse of Lake Michigan beyond. From strategist David Axelrod's office you can actually watch people ice-skating. A banner in reception, printed in the campaign's signature Gotham typeface, reads "Respect. Empower. Include. Win." Don't be fooled, though: it's only that last word that counts.
For all the feel-good vibes and lusciously designed graphics, what the strategists here have built is a giant killing machine. They've had the moneya cool $61 million at last disclosureand the time to assemble the biggest, baddest campaign infrastructure they could imagine. If you look past the start-up style ping-pong table with the stenciled 2012 logo and tune out the chirpy greetings of volunteers answering phones, you'll notice the team in the darkened southeast corner, the guys with the earlobe plugs and scraggly beards bent over MacBooks. New talent from Silicon Valley, these are the software engineers who are building proprietary data-collection, communications, and reporting systems that could drastically increase the campaign's ability to target swing-voters. And then there's the row of offices that line the eastern wall, secluded chambers where Deputy Campaign Managers Stephanie Cutter, Julianna Smoot, and Jen O'Malley Dillon, spend their days plotting ways to out-fundraise, out-communicate, and out-organize the other guy, whoever he may turn out to be."
Read More Dispatch from the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign: Politics: GQ
"Campaign offices are typically cluttered and uncomfortable, harshly lit windowless spaces that smell like people have been sleeping under their desks. Not this one. Obama 2012 occupies an entire floor of one of downtown Chicago's gleaming sandstone towers. Spread across more than 50,000 square feet, knots of twenty-something campaign staffers sit at rows of desks that stretch almost out of sight, evoking a trade floor more than a reelection fight. "Hey everyone," I hear a field staffer barking into a speakerphone, "we're live with Marshall in Nevada. Hello?"
Tall windows look out onto Millennium Park and the blue expanse of Lake Michigan beyond. From strategist David Axelrod's office you can actually watch people ice-skating. A banner in reception, printed in the campaign's signature Gotham typeface, reads "Respect. Empower. Include. Win." Don't be fooled, though: it's only that last word that counts.
For all the feel-good vibes and lusciously designed graphics, what the strategists here have built is a giant killing machine. They've had the moneya cool $61 million at last disclosureand the time to assemble the biggest, baddest campaign infrastructure they could imagine. If you look past the start-up style ping-pong table with the stenciled 2012 logo and tune out the chirpy greetings of volunteers answering phones, you'll notice the team in the darkened southeast corner, the guys with the earlobe plugs and scraggly beards bent over MacBooks. New talent from Silicon Valley, these are the software engineers who are building proprietary data-collection, communications, and reporting systems that could drastically increase the campaign's ability to target swing-voters. And then there's the row of offices that line the eastern wall, secluded chambers where Deputy Campaign Managers Stephanie Cutter, Julianna Smoot, and Jen O'Malley Dillon, spend their days plotting ways to out-fundraise, out-communicate, and out-organize the other guy, whoever he may turn out to be."
Read More Dispatch from the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign: Politics: GQ
