Chicago Hope
20.05.12
On the sixth floor of the Prudential Building in downtown Chicago, Jim Messina’s empire spreads out like two big-city newsrooms, joined together by a warren of small conference rooms named after swing states. On first glance, the operation looks—and sounds—disorganized. But it is soon apparent that there is logic to the way President Obama’s campaign manager operates.
For one thing, when Messina wants to address the staff—or pump them up—he can simply walk out of his office and project his voice. (A wag had a sign printed commemorating one of his outbursts: “Everyone chill the [expletive] out. I got this.”)
For another, every part of the organization—from the media department, to the political office, to field, to digital, to film and video—are only a short walk away. The word that best describes the operation is “integrated,” and that’s the probably as close as a layman will come to figuring out how apresident with middling popularity might win an election in an environment in which the unemployment rate is holding steady above 8 percent and pessimism about the future prevails.
Source: National Journal