The End of the Line

December 17, 2012

The End of the Line

A must-read out today for the Kindle: The End of the Line: The 34 days That Decided the Election by Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Martin.

A couple highlights:

"Romney instituted a point system that assigned a specific numerical value to each event -- rallies, speeches, fundraisers and so on. The more labor-intensive the event, the more points it was assigned. Romney's instructions to his assistant were that he was not to exceed 900 points on a given day, the better to manage his time."

"Obama's unshakeable confidence was deeply shaken by his own failure in Denver -- far more than anyone on the outside could have known at the time. Obama and his top advisers quietly waged a campaign-within-a-campaign to buck up their bummed-out candidate and, even more quietly, to purge distractions and negativity from his midst."

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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December 17, 2012