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233| Acknowledgments I am reminded of a note that President Obama scrawled out to my youngest son on his second birthday. It read in part: “Zane, dream big dreams.” Growing up in the 1970s in my little town of Three Rivers, California —with a population of less than two thousand—I imagined the White House was a faraway place that appeared on the television news every night. This was long before The West Wing series gave us any romantic ideas of what it was like to work in the political hothouse environment. It was also before 24/7 cable news. My most memorable early glimpses of Washington politics came to me through a small blackand -white screen with a dull picture and fuzzy reception on one of three network channels. That’s when I discovered my first reality television show, The Watergate Hearings. Despite this drama playing out in our nation’s politics, I grew up believing that government service was a noble calling. And while it was hard for a rural country boy like me to imagine I could ever find my way to the White House, I thought I was destined to work there someday. I attribute the sense of possibility I possessed to the people in my life that encouraged me to dream big. My parents were both educators and actively worked at helping me and my brother see a world bigger than ourselves, whether it was through their obvious commitment to others or scrimping every dime they had to take us to places you could only get to on an airplane. In fact, it was at the conclusion of my very first flight that I would get to actually see and walk through the White House when I was eleven years old. Because of the influence of my elementary and high school teachers like Bobbie Harris, Steve Fleming, Glen Bennett, and Richard Robinson , and my immediate and extended family—my mom and dad, my grandparents and relatives, Father Evan Howard and the Brothers at St. 234 | acknowledgments Anthony’s Retreat House, the Henning family (my Swedish exchange family), my Three Rivers classmates and neighbors, or my younger brother Mark and exchange sister Hildy—I learned to believe that if I kept the faith and worked hard, my vision for myself could become reality. Helping elect Barack Obama president was the experience of a lifetime . I relished being in the bunker with Steve Hildebrand, Anita Dunn, Jim Messina, Pete Rouse, and the rest of our leadership team at headquarters . It should be quite obvious from this book that I am a very big fan of David Plouffe’s. I miss working with him and I am forever grateful that he believed in me enough to make me the chief operating officer of this historic campaign. There were literally more than 150 people who worked directly for me during the campaign. And it was my honor to work for you. Perhaps the highest compliment I have ever been paid came from one of our crack budget analysts, Ellen Kim, who once introduced me as “a mentor of leaders.” I hope the first part of that statement was true, because the last part certainly was. This was a team effort. But there were a few people who led our part of this historic endeavor that should again be given a final ovation. Marianne Markowitz was an incredible copilot. I especially valued both her seriousness and her wonderful sense of humor. Jenn Clark was a joy to work with. Among other things, Jenn was our fixer. I always appreciated that she tackled some of our toughest problems so I didn’t have to. Dan Jones and Adi Kumar punched above their weight every day—and won commandingly. Treshawn Shields, Allyson Laackman, and Chief Staff Counsel Kendall Burman—whose desk lamp was always the last to go out at night—rounded out an amazing operations management team. I don’t think we had even one good fight among us. Ever. It was a great privilege to work with such a smart, dedicated, and collegial group. Finally, the two people I may have leaned on the most and could never thank enough were Alison Stanton and, later, Monika Juska. We also had a remarkable team of tech innovators who stepped up at different times. Kevin Malover expertly got us up and running, while Michael Slaby, moving over from new media, and Rajeev Chopra be- [3.142.196.27] Project MUSE (2024-04...

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