Glenn Thrush, co-author of Politico’s latest E-Book “The End of The Line” , joined Alex to discuss the culinary superstitions, campaign infighting and other assorted scoops from the 2012 presidential campaign.
In one passage, Thrush and his colleague Jonathan Martin explain how Team Obama swore off Thai food after the inner circle’s pre-debate meal in Denver was held responsible for their boss’s poor performance on the debate stage later that night.
“The Obamaites had always been a superstitious lot–the hyperrational Plouffe was the unlikely ringleader–but the superstition started kicking in now,” the authors wrote of the Obama team heading into the second debate at New York’s Hofstra University. “There was a blanket ban on Thai food in Chicago.”
Instead, the team in Chicago started to dine on chicken tenders from a nearby Houlihan’s–a tradition that had served them well back in 2008. Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau and press secretary Jay Carney grew “playoffs beards”; chief strategist David Axelrod was ordered to rummage around in his closet to find his lucky 2008 election night tie; and former press secretary Robert Gibbs always had to be the last person to see the president before he went on stage–another superstition dating back to the 2008 cycle. The one night he didn’t? You guessed it: the Denver collapse.
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