Current Position: Senior adviser at AKPD Message and Media (since February 2004)
Credit: Getty Images
Why He Matters
The architect of Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign, Plouffe is considered one of the best political minds in the Democratic Party.
In his acceptance speech on election night, Obama thanked Plouffe immediately after his family, calling him “the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best — the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.”
Plouffe, a numbers guru with a formidable knowledge of Congressional districts and demographics, devised an ambitious “50 State” strategy that focused on contesting every state, even those of the deepest Red. That strategy helped Obama pull off an upset victory over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in the primaries and expand the electoral map for Democrats in stunning ways with wins in the Rust Belt, Mountain West and Virginia in the general election.
Though he had overseen many successful Congressional races, Plouffe had yet to work on a winning presidential campaign team. But he oversaw the biggest campaign in presidential history, one that earned and spent millions of dollars a day, employed 1,000 staffers and included one million volunteers.
Plouffe is low-key and generally stays out of the spotlight, choosing to defer to Obama guru David Axelrod for television appearances and interviews. But he is regarded as a campaign mastermind. After the campaign ended, Plouffe said he was writing a book, titled “The Audacity to Win,” about the tactics behind the successful Obama campaign. “Hopefully, there will be some lessons on how to put together a three-quarters of a billion dollar operation,” Plouffe said.
At a Glance
Current Position: Senior adviser at AKPD Message and Media (since February 2004)
Career History: Adviser to Richard A. Gephardt's presidential campaign (2004); Senior adviser at AKPD (2000 to 2004); Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (1999 to 2000); Deputy Chief of Staff for Rep. Richard Gephardt (1997 to 1999)
Birthday: N/A
Hometown: Wilmington, Del.
Alma Mater: University of Delaware, attended 1985 to 1988
Spouse: Olivia Morgan
Religion: N/A
DC Office: N/A
Email N/A
Web site
Path to Power
Plouffe grew up in Delaware, the third of five children of working-class parents. In his senior yearbook, he joked that he was going to move to Atlantic City and “join the mob.” But that plan was tossed aside while Plouffe went to the University of Delaware to study political science.
During the summer of 1988, after his junior year in college, Plouffe left school when he got a job working on the Delaware Senate campaign of Sam Beard (D). His constitutional law professor at Delaware tells a story about talking to Plouffe after he missed a lot of class and seemed uninterested in school. “He told me he was more interested in practical politics,” Jim Magee said. In Beard’s campaign, Plouffe quickly worked his way up to a leadership role, eventually becoming field staff superviser. The campaign lost by 71 votes, “and it really struck me that if any of us had worked a little harder, we could have scrounged up another 71 votes,” Plouffe said.
Plouffe spent three years in Iowa, working on the senate and presidential campaigns of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). In 1992, he left Harkin and was in charge of a campaign for the first time: the winning bid House bid of Rep. John Olver (D-Mass.). For years, Plouffe was a political nomad, running campaigns in Delaware and New Jersey and served as campaign director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1995 before joining the staff of House Minority Leader Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) in 1997. He was highly successful as the executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for one year in 1999 — the DCCC raked in a record $95 million for House races in that cycle. In 2000, he joined political consultant David Axelrod at AKP&D Media and Message, and he became a partner at that firm in 2004 after returning from Gephardt’s presidential bid.
For AKP&D, he ran Obama’s freshman 2004 Senate campaign and says that he thought then that the state senator was “presidential material” but didn’t expect to see it happen so soon. Plouffe also worked for the successful 2006 campaign of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D). "He has the capacity to handle more details in his head at one time than anyone I know," Axelrod has said. "David is very determined at whatever he does."
The Issues
Plouffe is first and foremost a campaign strategist, and he will long be remembered for masterminding Obama’s historic presidential campaign.
During the Democratic primary, Plouffe’s strategy focused on Iowa, the first caucus in the nation’s primary. Plouffe had intimate knowledge of the Iowa caucuses from his years working for Harkin, and he was convinced Obama could win there. After Obama volunteers overwhelmed the state in late 2007, Obama pulled off the surprise victory over Clinton and Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.).
Many supporters pushed for Obama to expand his campaigning into a broader base of states, but Plouffe insisted on sticking with the heavy Iowa focus.
Plouffe will also be remembered for creating the “Feb. 5 and Beyond Room,” which focused on winning the races after Super Tuesday instead of focusing on a knockout blow on the biggest day of the campaign. Obama had much stronger organization than Clinton in the states that immediately followed Super Tuesday and used a string of 11 victories in those states to build an insurmountable lead. Ultimately, Obama lost the biggest states in the nation, but picked up small numbers of delegates all over the country, which was enough to put him over the top in pledged delegates.
The Chicago Tribune used the metaphor of a baseball team winning with a bunch of singles instead of a home run. "By the middle of February it was clear we were not going to lose," Plouffe said.
In the general election, the Obama campaign passed up financing and instead lived off funding from a record number of donors, many of whom contributed via the campaign’s innovative Web site. That allowed Obama to expand the fight to states like Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada instead of just contesting Republican nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania like 2008 Democratic nominee Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). The campaign he organized included record numbers of staffers and volunteers and was judged as free of unenforced errors by political professionals.
“It was perfectly run; it made few mistakes,” said Steve Schmidt, chief strategist for the McCain campaign. “And it took full advantage of an environment where the American people had turned on the incumbent president of the Republican Party and badly wanted change.”
The Network
Plouffe has worked closely with some of the most influential politicians in America. Other than President Barack Obama, the list includes Sen. Harkin, Gov. Patrick (D-Mass.) and former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.).
At AKP&D, Plouffe has worked with David Axelrod, John Kupper and John Del Cecato. Axelrod is well-known as a top strategist for Barack Obama. Kupper joined AKP&D in 1988 and was formerly a press secretary for Rep. Henry Reuss (D-Wis.). Del Cecato has worked press for Tom Vilsack’s (D-Iowa) 1998 run for governor and was the national spokesman for the DCCC before joining AKP&D.
Plouffe is married to Olivia Morgan, who worked as a spokesperson for the DCCC and for former California Gov. Gray Davis. She is a consultant with the Dewey Square Group.
