Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007

MUNUC 32

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Letter from the Chair………………………………………………………….. 3

Letter from the Crisis Director…………………………………………………5 History of the Problem…………………………………………………………7

Barack Obama: Biography…………………………………………………11

Possible Controversies……………………………………………………….19 Economics – A Primer………………………………………………………..22

Major Candidates, Democratic Primary………………………………….33

The Democratic Primary: A Primer…………………………………………37 Questions to Consider………………………………………………………..44

Character Biographies………………………………………………………46 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………...61

2 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 LETTER FROM THE CHAIR

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Esteemed Campaign Advisors,

Hello, and welcome to the Presidential Campaign of Barack Obama! Flashback to 2007: the iPhone is a technological miracle, the Black Eyed Peas are topping the charts, and a freshman Senator from Illinois is about to embark on a journey that will define the next century. My name is Carter and I’m thrilled to be your Chair as you all drive a campaign to take America by storm.

A bit about myself: I’m a third year in the College at the University of Chicago, studying Political Science (and probably another major or a few minors, as long as I can keep a high GPA for law school)! I originally hail from Louisville, Kentucky (pronounced Loo-a-vul)--home of horse racing, fried chicken, and Muhammad Ali. Outside of coursework, I’m the Vice President of our competitive Model UN Team, and am a Crisis Director for a committee (The Virgin Group, 2020) at ChoMUN, our collegiate Model UN conference. This is my second year at MUNUC--last year I staffed the Cabinet of Uzbekistan, 1991. I also work at UChicago’s Community Programs Accelerator as a consultant for nonprofits on Chicago’s South Side, and spend my limited free time exploring this beautiful city and finding good food.

Both Christian and myself are beyond excited to be running this truly unique committee. Barack Obama’s 2007 Campaign is a watershed moment in American politics as the United States lurched into the 21st Century. The campaign addressed brand new policy problems, made use of technology, dealt with myriad scandals, and got America’s first black president elected. The Crisis Committees typically offered at MUNUC are cabinets, councils, or other executive government bodies: our committee is none of those things. As a campaign, you will be tasked with using your resources in rapid-action responses to keep your candidate on top and in front.

3 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 A few notes on what I look for as a Chair. First and foremost, respect is the name of the game. Overly aggressive tactics and generally poor-spirited actions will not be well received. That said, I trust you all to behave like adults! I hope to see energetic and constructive debate on solutions which creatively address the problems we throw at you. Want to do well? Come prepared with plenty of research under your belt on your character, the committee topic, and the time period. Then, use directives and speeches to prove to us that you have a firm grasp on the issues at stake!

Christian and I are thrilled to see how you all steer this campaign, and have full faith that you’ll do an admirable job. When things get challenging and you don’t think you can overcome the problems, just remember: “Yes we can.” We’ll see you in February!

All the best,

Carter Squires [email protected]

4 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 LETTER FROM THE CRISIS DIRECTOR

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Dear Delegates,

Welcome aboard. Carter and I are very enthused to have you all joining us at MUNUC 32. This committee is dynamic, interesting, relevant to the present, and has quite some room for imagination and creativity. Throughout the weekend, you will be interacting with foreign, political, economic, and social affairs issues that not only affected the presidential race of 2007-08 but continue to define the United States and the world in the present day. Furthermore, this is also the first time in recent memory that MUNUC has run a campaign as a continuous crisis, so I hope you are excited to join us in blazing a new trail for delegates to come.

I will be your Crisis Director for this weekend. Essentially, my job, along with our team of Assistant Chairs, who will be responding to your notes, is to create and control the world outside of committee. A bit of background on me: I am a third year student at UChicago studying economics and chemistry. I am originally from Toronto and I was a CD for MUNUC last year. I am also an Under- Secretary-General for ChoMUN, our collegiate conference, have competed for our competitive team, and am a board member for an undergraduate financial society. I also enjoy baseball, hockey, and progressive rock music.

You will interact with the outside world both through committee directives, which are passed by plurality, and by personal directives, commonly known as crisis notes or backroom notes. These are in-character messages to people your character would have contact with, i.e. family members or your admin assistant. Through the backroom (our term for the crisis room), you can and should use your portfolio powers to influence the world outside committee without passing directives. This is a valuable tool if you want to do something for your character’s own personal gain, or something internally in your department. I encourage you to use the backroom heavily and be creative and detailed in your requests. While realism in your requests is key, a big part of crisis is imagination, so if you have a reasonable, interesting, and well-thought out way to get a private army, buy Ontario, create a TV game show that gives your character a cult following, or rig an election, we will listen.

5 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 I will also encourage you to work together when you feel it is necessary, and not just for the purposes of doing so. Your ideas for backroom do not have to be pre-planned and be developed in situ, but they should not be sporadic. Save reacting to updates for the frontroom; in the backroom, focus on building a storyline, or crisis arc as we call it, for your character. A good place to start is getting into character, looking at your bio, and thinking about what you as that person would want to accomplish, for the gain of France and/or yourself. Then, map out a way to get there, building up resources and using them, and considering who you will need to contact along the way (those people can be fictional; simply write to them and we will respond as them). We are eager to ‘break’ your backroom actions into front room crisis updates that affect the committee.

Requests for feedback and assistance on how to use the incredible resource that is the backroom will be valued and welcomed at all times. You will not be judged by your level of experience, but rather by how you respond to stimuli using the tools that you have, and have been given by us.

I look forward to combining MUNUC’s signature pedagogical experience with the mental athleticism that I love about Crisis. If you have any questions about best practices, expectations, rules, the background guide, or anything else, please feel free to email me at [email protected]

I hope you’re as excited to shape history as I am. See you all in February.

Regards,

Christian

6 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 History of the Problem

The End of the 1990s, and the Rise of George Bush

In order to understand the political environment in which we sit as a committee, we must travel back to the last presidential election in which the incumbent was ineligible: 2000. The late 1990s had seen a series of drastic changes to the American political landscape. The economy was doing strikingly well; for the first time in a very long time, the federal budget was balanced, and the recession that had begun the decade had given way to a long period of growth with fairly low inflation. Clinton’s economic policy was augmented by his partial repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act of 1933, enabling investment banks to intermingle with merchant and retain banks, consolidating the financial industry. Clinton had signed into law various tough-on-crime bills as part of an effort to work with a Republican congress, and mandatory minimum sentences had become a key piece in the war on drugs. During this time, the American prison population increased substantially.

The downfall of the USSR meant that Bill Clinton’s foreign policy agenda was going to have to be dramatically different than many of his predecessors. Whereas they had had the ability to map everything in a more or less bipolar light, as most every significant international actor was either aligned with the capitalist west or the socialist east, the demise of Soviet hegemony brought about changes to those present on the world stage. Clinton had sought to maintain a good relationship with China, as they had become increasingly powerful, diplomatically (and militarily) and financially, notwithstanding the Asian currency crisis of 1997. The handover of Hong Kong to China had signaled that the era of empire was over for the British in the East. Furthermore, Japan had grown dramatically in the years since the US had restructured its economy and government following the Second World War, and Japan had rapidly ascended throughout the 1980s to become the world’s second largest economy. Japanese investment in the US had grown at a previously unimaginable rate, but a drop in asset prices at the start of the 90s decade had seen a rapid unravelling of the overleveraged and over generous Japanese banking system, which had given out far too many loans to undeserving borrowers.

The end of Clinton’s presidency was marked by increasing job approval ratings and personal scandal, a strong economy, and a balanced budget. The crisis in the Balkans led to Clinton leading an

7 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 international coalition in what was dubbed a “humanitarian bombing” campaign to halt the advances of troops perpetrating an ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. Although Tony Blair of the UK had wanted to push forward with an invasion, the bombing campaign worked, with the genocide being halted and the chief commanders being tried in the Hague. Clinton had remarked that he had always been a bit uneasy in the role of Commander-in-Chief compared to his other presidential responsibilities, but nonetheless, the crisis was deescalated.

2000 was a presidential election year, and it saw incumbent Vice-President Al Gore handily defeat other challengers for the democratic nomination. Although not lacking such a dramatic margin of victory, Texas governor George Bush carried the vast majority of states en route to a sizeable win over the runner up, Arizona Senator John McCain (who we will hear a lot more about later). Clinton’s legacy was hugely impactful on the campaign; despite being a Democrat, he had declared that “the era of big government [was] over” in a State of the Union address, and indeed it seemed that both sides of the aisle had embraced that mentality, for Bush and Gore seemed to be quite aligned on a number of issues, notably their support of NAFTA. In the end, the race was very close, right up until the final day. Gore won the popular vote by a fairly sizeable margin of about half-a-million votes, but the results of presidential elections are determined by the outcome of the electoral college, which was not as clear-cut. Both candidates needed to win the crucial state of Florida to claim victory, and the results were painfully close. When it seemed as though the outcome of the state’s electoral votes, and thus the presidency, were going to be decided by no more than a few hundred votes, and with many criticizing the design of the now infamous “butterfly ballot” that was alleged to have confused older voters (many of which were perceived to be Democrats), Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris ordered a recount. This recount was halted a few months later by the US Supreme Court, who ruled in the 5-4 decision on Bush v. Gore to stop the recount and hand the state, and the election, to Bush, who won with 271 electoral votes, 1 more than needed.

Bush had campaigned on tax cuts, and came into office with an ambitious domestic agenda. The bursting of the dot com bubble, combined with the previous 10 years of prolonged growth with very low inflation had brought about a mild recession to start the decade, which Bush had sought to quell. These tax cuts were passed in the summer of 2001, and Bush had remarked that he had much more to do with his domestic policy, including revamping education and further tax cuts. Everything was

8 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 sidelined with the calamity of September 11th, 2001. The terrorist attacks left almost 3000 people dead and changed the history of the United States forever. This document will not dwell on the details of the attacks, but Bush’s response was considered very strong. In a speech given from a bullhorn near the site of the destroyed World Trade Center, Bush vowed that the “people who bring these buildings down will hear all of us soon,'' a sentiment that he echoed in an address to a Joint Session of Congress a few days later. Within a month, the US made true on that promise, leading a large coalition of countries in an invasion of Afghanistan, whose Taliban regime was widely regarded as sympathetic to the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization that had claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Taliban refused to hand Osama bin Laden, the leader of that group, over to the US for prosecution over involvement in the attacks unless they produced evidence and met certain other conditions; Bush rejected these conditions, saying that the US “does not negotiate with terrorists” and vowed to capture Bin Laden, who had been on the wanted list since 1998, with force. The invasion was swift and before year’s end, the Taliban regime had fallen.

In his 2002 State of the Union, Bush declared that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea constituted an ‘axis of evil’ that undermined the national security of the United States and set forth the neoconservative- influenced Bush doctrine: that the propagation of democracy, using force if necessary, was the best answer to America’s national security needs. Soon, all eyes fell upon the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Bush’s father had left Saddam in power after the 1991 invasion of Kuwait; his stated war aims had been to remove the Iraqis from Kuwait alone, and this was done. However, Saddam had had both chemical weapons and an advanced nuclear weapons program at the time, and although he had surrendered to IAEA inspectors in the late 90s, he had since kicked them out of the country. There was a suspicion that Saddam was developing WMDs, and Bush began building an international coalition around an invasion of Iraq, with the goal of regime change. The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution demanding that Iraq meet WMD inspection expectations, but with the opposition of Russia, China, France and Germany, with the former three having vetoes, a resolution authorizing a war was not obtained. The US congress did pass a resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, although there was some opposition. Although not serving in federal office at the time, Barack Obama was opposed to the war. Colin Powell’s moving presentations at the UNSC were unable to truly secure a wide coalition of the calibre seen in Afghanistan; nonetheless, the United

9 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Kingdom, which had made significant contributions to the Afghan conflict, vowed to support the US, and in March of 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched.

The invasion was a quick military success; the Iraqis stood little chance against the American military machine. Saddam escaped and went into hiding, and Bush installed Paul Bremer as the leader of the provisional government. In May, Bush gave a now infamous speech: after landing on an aircraft carrier, and with a banner saying “Mission Accomplished” in the background, Bush declared that major combat operations were over, and a transition to democracy would be quick. Unfortunately, this was far from the case. The installation of a democratic government did nothing but incite an insurgency that plagued the US forces with many years of insurgency; to date, the vast majority of casualties have happened after this speech. Furthermore, no evidence of a nuclear program could be found, and although Saddam was tried and hanged in 2006, many have openly wondered whether the Ba’athist regime, with its tight control over rebel groups and religious extremist militias, was as great a threat to national security as reported. It has become clear that in the present day, the war is widely regarded as a mistake, with a poorly thought out rationale, dubious permissibility under international law, and above all, an ill-defined exit strategy. Although Osama bin Laden has still evaded capture, the War in Afghanistan has proven to be much more successful, with the new regime led by Hamid Karzai providing a much more stable governance, and with meaningful actions to root out al-Qaeda having been taken.

The domestic policy of the Bush administration was, at times, quite conservative in nature, but the White House showed a willingness to partner with the other side on a variety of issues. Funding for the NIH and NSF was increased in most years, but the marquee education legislation of this time was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. The act was aimed at decreasing educational inequality, and although median test scores did improve, critics noted that the program put a lot of emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing and less on more qualitative measures of child performance. Bush also signed into law a medicare expansion that created a deeper prescription drug plan under the program, which was described at the time as one of the largest welfare expansions in the history of the country. Thus, the United States remains embroiled in two conflicts abroad while many wonder how recent domestic reforms will play out.

10 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Barack Obama: Biography

I. Family and Early Life

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham.1 He was born barely a year after his parents had met as undergraduates at the University of Hawaii in 1960--indeed, the two were quite far from their respective homes. Obama’s father originally hailed from Kenya; his mother from Kansas.2 In the first of many moves, during a childhood spent hopping from place to place, Dunham brought the infant Barack to Seattle where she finished her undergraduate studies before returning to Hawaii.3 In the meantime, Obama Sr. had moved across America to begin graduate school at Harvard.4 Upon returning to Hawaii, Dunham uncontestedly divorced Obama Sr. in 1964, before remarrying Lolo Soetoro and moving to Jakarta, Indonesia. Obama lived in Indonesia from 1967 to 1971, then moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. He remained in Hawaii until his graduation from high school in 1979.5 Obama would later reflect on his time in Hawaii as a formative one--a mixed-race kid in one of the most multicultural and diverse places not only in America, but in the world--writing in 1999:

"The opportunity that Hawaii offered -- to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect -- became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."6

1 David Maraniss, “Though Obama Had to Leave to Find Himself, It Is Hawaii That Made His Rise Possible,” Washington Post, August 22, 2008. Accessed June 30, 2019, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082201679.html. 2 Amanda Ripley, “The Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” Time, April 9, 2008, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729685,00.html. 3 Ibid. 4 Maraniss, 2008 5 Ibid. 6 B.J. Reyes, “Starbulletin.Com | News | /2007/02/08/,” Honolulu Star Bulletin, February 8, 2007, http://archives.starbulletin.com/2007/02/08/news/story02.html.

11 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 II. Education

Obama moved to the mainland following his high school graduation, to attend Occidental College in Los Angeles.7 Though he would transfer after his sophomore year, Obama’s stint at Occidental marked his first public speech, in which he called for Occidental to divest from South Africa.8 He transferred to Columbia University halfway through college, from which he graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science and English literature.9 Obama remained politically active throughout college, routinely taking time to speak publicly or organize his fellow students. Immediately after graduation, Obama worked for two years at various consulting firms and research groups, before moving to Chicago where he found a foothold as a community organizer.10

III. Career Pre-Politics

Community Organizer

Obama’s career before he sought elected office was defined by an emphasis on assisting lower- income and lower-resource communities. He worked for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization.11 Obama’s prowess as a leader was already becoming evident--as director, he increased the DCP’s budget fivefold and created numerous new programs.

7 Gordon, Larry (January 29, 2007). "Occidental recalls 'Barry' Obama". Los Angeles Times. p. B1. Retrieved July 1, 2019 8 Ibid. 9 Boss-Bicak, Shira (January 2005). "Barack Obama '83". Columbia College Today. Archived from the original on September 5, 2008. 10Secter, Bob; McCormick, John (March 30, 2007). "Portrait of a pragmatist". Chicago Tribune. p. 1. Archived from the original on December 14, 2009. Retrieved February 14, 2009. Obama (1995, 2004), pp. 140–295; Mendell (2007), pp. 63– 83. 11 Ibid.

12 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Harvard Law

After his first stint as a community organizer, Obama decided to pursue a law degree at Harvard Law School in 1988. He explained his pursuit as a way to boost his ability to serve as an organizer and activist:

“"The idea was not only to get people to learn how to hope and dream about different possibilities, but to know how the tax structure affects what kind of housing gets built where."12

An excellent student, Obama was selected as an editor for the Harvard Law Review, before being elected its first black president in his second year. While in law school, he worked as an associate at the law firm of Sidley and Austin in Chicago, where he met a woman named Michelle Robinson--the two, of course, would go on to move to Hyde Park and get married following Obama’s graduation from law school in 1991. 13

The Obamas and Chicago

Moving to Chicago, and Hyde Park in particular, would prove to be of great consequence for Barack Obama’s future political career, thanks in large part to Michelle’s connections in the city.14 Barack was continually introduced to a stream of influential African American organizers and businesspeople, connections which would be crucial for his political career down the line.15 He worked for Illinois Project Vote in 1992, a voter registration drive, where he not only contributed to the election of

12 Brown, Roxanne (August 1990). "In Pursuit of Excellence". Ebony. pp. 114, 116. Retrieved January 2, 2009. 13 Becker, Jo and Drew, Christopher, "Pragmatic politics, forged on the South Side", The New York Times, May 11, 2008. Retrieved July 5, 2019 14 Lizza, Ryan (March 19, 2007). "The Agitator; Barack Obama's unlikely political education". The New Republic. Retrieved July 5, 2019. 15 Ibid.

13 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Carol Moseley Braun (the first black female Senator), but also met key political figures who would manage his campaigns down the line.16

Additionally, Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, beginning in 1992, where he would remain as a Senior Lecturer until 2004. He worked at the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland as an attorney, starting in 1993. The firm specialized in civil rights law and neighborhood development, and Obama admitted that he joined the firm primarily out of interest for Chicago politics, rather than law in itself.17 As he continued to deepen his involvement with community organizations in Chicago, Obama came to the conclusion that many of the problems he wished to tackle--inequality, sluggish neighborhood development, low voter engagement--may have been better addressed through systematic policy reform. As such, when longtime Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer announced her decision to run for Congress, leaving a vacant State Senate seat on the South Side of Chicago (the 13th District), Obama saw an opportunity.18 Indeed, on September 19, 1995 at the Ramada Inn Lakeshore, to about 200 supporters, the young community organizer and law professor announced his first candidacy for political office.19

IV. Political Career, 1996-2007

Illinois State Senate

Following a slew of endorsements from Chicago political figures, Obama’s first campaign for State Senate soon hit a few rough patches. His mother died of uterine cancer in Honolulu in early November, so Obama returned to Hawaii for the memorial service. A few weeks after his return to Chicago, Alice Palmer--the woman whose decision to run for Congress had freed up the seat Obama was now seeking--finished as a distant third in the primary race for Congress. She proceeded to re- enter the race for her old seat, against Obama, but failed to collect enough signatures in time to be

16 Ibid. 17 Becker, Jo and Drew, Christopher, "Pragmatic politics, forged on the South Side", The New York Times, May 11, 2008. Retrieved July 5, 2019 18 Knapp, Kevin (July 5, 1995). "Alice Palmer to run for Reynolds' seat". Hyde Park Herald. p. 1. Archived from the original on April 22, 2012. Retrieved July 5, 2019. 19 Strausberg, Chinta (September 19, 1995). "Harvard lawyer eyes Palmer seat". Chicago Defender. p. 3.

14 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 placed on the ballot.20 Obama won the primary unopposed, and then easily won the general election; he was sworn into the Illinois State Senate in January 1997.

Obama’s skills as a legislator were immediately apparent. Early in his first term, for instance, he was tasked (at the recommendation of former US Senator Paul Simon) with pushing a campaign finance bill through the Illinois Senate.21 Obama’s experience organizing communities paid dividends, as he proceeded to organize Senators such that the bill was able to pass. He continued to work on legislation which restructured Illinois’ welfare program, boosted tax credits for working families, and provided childcare support for low-income families.22 Towards the beginning of his second term, Obama attempted a run for Congress, as he tried to oust incumbent Bobby Rush in the 2000 Democratic Primary for Congress. While Obama pulled impressive amounts in fundraising, Rush’s assertions that Obama was not rooted deeply enough in Chicago’s black neighborhoods proved to be persuasive to many voters. For what would be the first and only time thus far, Obama lost the election and returned to the State Senate.23

Obama was not discouraged. He worked to repair and strengthen relationships with black politicians and church leaders, and worked actively to secure funding in the State Senate for churches and

20 Strausberg, Chinta (December 5, 1995). "Draft Palmer campaign launched". Chicago Defender. p. 4. 21 Becker, Jo; Drew, Christopher (May 11, 2008). "Pragmatic politics, forged on the South Side". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved July 5, 2019 22 "Highlights of Obama's strong record of accomplishment in the U.S. and Illinois Senate". Know the Facts. barackobama.com. Archived from the original on March 18, 2009. Retrieved July 5, 2019. 23 Scott, Janny (September 9, 2007). "A streetwise veteran schooled young Obama". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved July 5, 2019

15 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 community groups.24 He became chair of the Health and Human Services committee once Democrats won control of the State Senate in 2002, where he sponsored childrens’ healthcare initiatives and workers’ rights laws. By May 2002, however, Obama had set his sights on his next goal.

US Senator from Illinois

Peter Fitzgerald, an incumbent US Senator from Illinois, had announced his intent not to run for re- election in the 2004 Senate Election.25 Obama met with a handful of his political allies and officially launched his Senatorial Campaign in January 2003. The primary race was crowded, with 15 candidates, but a remarkably effective campaign earned Obama 52% of the vote as he handily won the March primary and prepared for the general election.

In the meantime, his stunning landslide victory in the Primary had made him a rising star within the Democratic Party. While John Kerry, the soon-to-be-nominated 2004 Democratic Candidate for the Presidency was doing a campaign stop in Chicago, he met Obama and was remarkably impressed-- leading to Obama being selected to give the lucrative keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.26 All of a sudden, Obama was thrust into the national spotlight, as he gave interviews with Face the Nation, Good Morning America, Meet the Press, and NPR, even before the speech was delivered.27 The speech itself was part-autobiography, part-vision for the Democratic Party, and part-call to national unity. In what would become a familiar theme for Obama and his campaigns, hope was a critical theme.

“It's the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs. The hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores. The hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta. The hope

24 Becker, Jo; Drew, Christopher (May 11, 2008). "Pragmatic politics, forged on the South Side". The New York Times. p. A1. Retrieved July 5, 2019 25 Davey, Monica (March 7, 2004). "Closely Watched Illinois Senate Race Attracts 7 Candidates in Millionaire Range". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 16, 2009. Retrieved July 5, 2019 26 Olopade, Dayo (2008-08-25). "Barack's Big Night". The New Republic. Archived from the original on 2009-05-14. Retrieved July 6 2019 27 Ibid.

16 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 of a mill worker's son who dares to defy the odds. The hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope! Hope in the face of difficulty! Hope in the face of uncertainty! The audacity of hope! In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.”28

The speech was remarkably well-received, earning Barack Obama a much higher degree of national name recognition- -not to mention incredible notoriety in Illinois. Due in-part to that, and in-part to a dropping-out by his Republican opponent (who was hastily replaced)--Obama handily won his Senatorial Election with 70% of the vote on November 2, 2004.29

Upon his election, Obama quickly established a firm base in Washington. He hired a number of high- level advisors to assist him with everything from fiscal to foreign policy.30 In the 109th Congress, from 2005-2006, Obama played an active role in border security and immigration reform.31

He also focused on foreign policy, as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee Obama traveled to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa--often on trips to devise strategies for controlling the creation and spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).32 In the 110th Congress, Obama worked to improve electoral transparency by decreasing the power of lobbyists, and co-sponsored a bill with Senator John McCain to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 66% by 2050. 33 Generally,

28 Bernstein, David (June 2007). "The Speech". Chicago Magazine. Archived from the original on 2009-05-14. Retrieved July 6 2019 29 "America Votes 2004: U.S. Senate/Illinois". CNN. Retrieved July 6 2019 30 Bacon Jr., Perry (8/ 27, 2007). "The Outsider's Insider". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 6 2019 31 "Immigration Bill Divides House, Senate". USA Today. September 22, 2006. Retrieved July 6 2019 32 Larson, Christina (September 2006). Washington Monthly. Archived from the original on April 30, 2008. Retrieved July 6 2019 33 H. Josef, Hebert (January 29, 2007). "Congress Begins Tackling Climate Issues". CBS News. Associated Press. Archived from the original on May 19, 2008. Retrieved July 6 2019

17 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Obama’s career in the Senate thus far has been characterized by loyalty to Democratic causes, while frequently working across the aisle with his Republican colleagues.

V. Leadup to Presidential Campaign

While Senator Obama has been able to accomplish an impressive amount in his stint in Congress, that fateful night of the speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and the national notoriety he gained as a result, had sparked ambitions for something greater. Recently, the Senator has been attending political events in Iowa34 and New Hampshire,35 states notable for holding the earliest Presidential Primary caucuses and elections in the United States. Indeed, these appearances have sparked rumors that Barack Obama intends to seek the Presidency.

Of course, as his campaign staff, you all already know that this is the case. Senator Obama plans to publicly announce his candidacy for the Presidency imminently. So let’s hit the ground running, show this country what we’ve got, and put Barack Obama in the White House.

34 Kornblut, Anne E. "For This Red Meat Crowd, Obama's '08 Choice Is Clear," New York Times, September 18, 2006. Retrieved July 6 2019 35 Ibid.

18 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Possible Controversies

I. Heritage

If elected, Barack Obama will be the first black President in American history. While we would certainly hope that, in the 21st Century, the United States is more than ready for this, there are already false rumors circulating surrounding Senator Obama’s heritage and religion. As you all know, Obama’s father was a Kenyan man, and Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Despite that, some corners of the internet have been spreading theories that Obama was born in Kenya, which would make him ineligible for the Presidency.36 Such rumors also frequently assert that Obama is Muslim, another falsehood, capitalizing on the rampant Islamophobia in many parts of America.37 We intend as a campaign to ignore these rumors or treat them as what they are: lies. So far, no major political figures or news outlets have reported on these conspiracy theories, so we hope that they simply fizzle out over time.

High School and College Years

Like many young Americans, Obama frequently grappled with questions of identity and personality throughout high school and early college. He has been frank with reporters and voters, admitting to using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine while a teenager.38 We know that Senator Obama has not used illegal drugs since he was a teenager. While polling data does not currently indicate that this is a dealbreaker for many Americans, it is possible that opponents could “clutch their pearls” and point to this as some kind of moral failing. Given that America’s 42nd

36 “Smears 2.0.” Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2007. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-dec-03-ed- obama3-story.html.

37 Ibid. 38 Elliott, Philip (Associated Press) (November 21, 2007). "Obama gets blunt with N.H. students". Boston Globe. p. 8A.

19 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 and 43rd Presidents have both admitted to drug use, this should not be too much of a problem.

Relative Inexperience

This may prove to be a compelling argument among Democratic voters. Obama is certainly one of the least politically experienced candidates in the Democratic field, having served in the Senate for just three years.39 While we as a campaign believe that Obama’s experience as a community organizer, law professor, and politician make him a compelling choice for the Presidency, we will need to convince the nation of that truth–the previous handful of Presidents have certainly been more experienced, especially at the national political level. If a candidate like Biden, Clinton, or Edwards make arguments about experience, Obama could be in trouble.

Jeremiah Wright

This is perhaps the most concerning potential controversy, as Senator Obama has only recently confided in his campaign staff that it could be a problem, and news outlets have not yet become aware. Obama is quite close with Pastor Jeremiah Wright at Trinity United Church in Chicago.40 The Obama family regularly attends Trinity United, and Wright officiated the wedding of Barack and Michelle. Wright has given a number of controversial sermons in the past, making comments which have insinuated that the United States was responsible for 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, spread conspiracy theories, as well as point to a number of other failings by the United States.41 While we do not believe Obama holds many, if any, of these beliefs, his opponents could easily insinuate

39 “RealClearPolitics - Articles - Obama the Inexperienced.” Accessed August 15, 2019. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obama_the_inexperienced.html.

40 Ross, Brian; el-Buri, Rehab (March 13, 2008). "Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11". ABC News 41 Dilanian, Ken (2008-03-18). "Defenders say Wright has love, righteous anger for USA". USA Today.

20 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 that Obama’s connection with Wright means he is a radical, or unpatriotic, or any one of a number of other smears.42

42 Ibid.

21 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Economics – A Primer

General note for this section - this will be fairly dense and complicated reading (but we’ve tried to simplify everything as much as possible), so it is totally okay if there are parts of it that are confusing. The key part is 3E. Which will give you the current situation as it stands today and will be most relevant to the committee. While the other sections will be useful in helping you understand how economies function and the ‘why’ of what’s happening, the final section serves more of a ‘what is actually going on’, so pay close attention to that one in particular.

President Bush campaigned on lowering taxes, as members of the GOP are inclined to do, and so it came as no surprise that one of his first major policy items was to sign into law a massive tax cut. This was seen by some on the Left as a questionable decision; the finances of the federal government were in the healthiest position they had been in for quite some time. Specifically, since the end of the Clinton administration, there had been continuous government surpluses. When governments take in more money (revenue) than they spend (expenditures), they have a surplus, which, for the government, is generally regarded as a good thing. When the government is not operating at a surplus (i.e. spending more than they’re taking in), they are operating at a deficit. In a deficit, the government often resorts to issuing debt as a way to cover their spending. You can think of issuing debt as an ‘I Owe You’. The government takes money from you now, and gives you an ‘I Owe You’ note from the US Treasury promising to pay you back in a few years with interest.Thanks to the (in)famous debt clock in New York City, it is well-known that the United States’s debt is now in the trillions. With each passing minute, the clock continues to tick upwards.

Government Debt

At any rate, the US treasury’s notes are widely seen as being risk-free, and the Capital Asset Pricing Model uses them as its ‘risk-free rate’, when measuring an investments performance relative to the guaranteed returns of US government bonds. Risk is something that investors want to be compensated for monetarily, and thus, due to the low risk associated with them, US treasuries have not had to command very high interest rates, compared to various other countries, and thus the US government has been able for many years to finance its deficits (when spending exceeds revenues) fairly cheaply. The Clinton surpluses actually went towards paying down the massive US debt

22 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 (paying back our other I Owe You notes), but Bush sought to do away with that, and return the nation to yearly deficits. His logic was that the economy would need help getting back on track after it crashed near the beginning of his presidency, and that the surplus would be better spent by the American people themselves rather than the government. Now, one might ask oneself: ‘self, why are deficits a problem? If we can keep borrowing to pay off our old I Owe You notes, why should we worry about how much debt we accumulate? There will never be a day in which we need to pay it all off’. The answer to that question is that borrowing is, in fact, expensive. Let's go back to our teacher example. If your teacher borrows 10 dollars from you and promises to pay you back 11 tomorrow, that 1 dollar of interest he’s paying you (the price to borrow money) doesn’t seem like that much. But what if he still doesn’t have the money tomorrow? Well, he’ll have to borrow 11 dollars from someone else to pay you back, and promise to pay them 12. See how this gets out of hand very quickly? Additionally, what if he’s not just borrowing 10 dollars from you, he’s borrowing 10 dollars from 1 million students (class sizes keep getting bigger!) , imagine how difficult it's going to be to keep borrowing more and more money to pay back the I Owe You’s! Interest is a sizeable expense for most governments, and additionally, it is hard to argue that tax dollars would be better off in the pockets of the owners of US treasuries than say, those on medicare. It’s a tough balance to strike, but coming out of the economic crash, Bush bet on the fact that a cleverly timed tax cut would bring the country out of the recession that it had endured from March through November of 2001.

Recessions

A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic shrinkage, measured in GDP. But in simpler terms, its when the size of the US Economy (measured in total dollars produced) decreases for more than 6 months. Not all recessions are created equal, and the recession that was sustained by the US in the middle of 2001 was not nearly as severe as the downturns experienced by other countries worldwide during that time; the Russian and Southeast Asian financial crises of years prior had provided significantly more economic hardship. At the same time, however, Canada major American trading partner, had managed to avoid a recession altogether in a rough global climate, as had the UK and Australia. Pressure was on the Bush administration to sustain the expansion once growth resumed, after the end of the downturn in 2001-2002. Economists have long feared that more developed economies could enter into the economic stalemate that has faced Japan for many

23 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 years and to this very day: quiet growth, coupled with negative inflation. Inflation is defined as a rise in price levels, and a good level of inflation is essential for a healthy economy. Most economists agree that a target of around 2% inflation per year is ideal for an economy like the US. Now one might think that inflation is just a bit of a pain and nothing, for it means that one’s savings are slowly sinking in value -- in fact, that is why inflation is so valuable. Many know the tales of Germany after WWI and their experience with hyperinflation -- to pay off war debt, the government ran the printing presses to produce cash for free, and the ensuing flood of money supply rendered the Deutsche Mark of the day almost entirely worthless; prices for bread were measured not in Marks but in the weight of the bills that would be needed, and they climbed quickly. One might be led to believe that inflation is not to be desired at all then, but an environment in which a dollar tomorrow is worth as much as a dollar today provides no incentive for one to spend one’s dollars. In other words, inflation makes your dollars worth less if you don’t do anything with them (i.e. keep them under your mattress), which is why that 2% positive inflation level is so good: it provides a *slight* push to spend your money. Not so much of a push that money is worthless (like Germany), but enough to continually keep people consuming goods. In Japan, with their negative inflation, consumers are more inclined to save their money, as it will buy them more tomorrow than it will today.

Money Supply

All of this is perhaps a bit of an oversimplification -- many Chicago economists would argue that consumption is not the only thing that one can do to stimulate the economy. Savings, rather than being a “leakage” (i.e. if your money is sitting in a bank vault its not circulating in the economy, or in other words, savings is the money that has ‘leaked’ out of the economy), are in fact very important for the economy and the financial system. The important thing to remember is that when people save, they are not just stuffing it into their mattresses. Rather, they are giving it to banks for example, which generates what’s called a yield, a return on their money. Some reading this may have seen some of the Harry Potter films and recall that in the wizarding bank Gringotts, Harry’s family wealth is just sitting in a vault. This is not representative of banking. Banks want to keep as little of their deposited money physically on their premises as possible -- they can lend it out at a higher interest rate and turn a profit. The idea of bridging the gap between higher long-term interest rates and lower short-term ones, and making money off others’ deposits, is what has made banking

24 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 such an immensely important and profitable industry for mankind. Wealth can effectively be multiplied in this way, for a bank can use Joe the Plumber’s $500 cheque for a week of labor and lend it and 10 other plumbers’ out to a sheep farmer who wants to buy a new tractor. The sheep farmer, being industrious, pays back his loan with interest, for he has been able to use a capital good (the tractor to exponentially improve his per-unit productivity (in this case, how many sheep he has to raise to earn a dollar of income) -- the economy’s productivity has grown! This is exciting news. When the sheep farmer pays back his loan with interest, the bank can reinvest that interest and provide further loans, pay it out as a performance bonus to the head of the branch that made the loan, and most importantly, pay Joe a small interest fee for letting them use his money.

Introduction to Money and Banking for the purposes of this committee

Read more about the mechanics of this in section 3E, the Appendix.

The good news here is that Joe the Plumber is no worse off -- he has gotten his interest on his bank account, and he can withdraw from it at any time, because the money lent to the sheep farmer, or any farmer for example, is not earmarked for any given depositor but rather is just part of the bank’s general balance sheet; in other words, it can be lent out to anyone. Think of this as back in middle school, when you would forget your pencil before a test and would have to borrow one from a teacher. Once you handed that pencil back after the test, anyone could use it afterwards. As such, banks can lend out nearly all of the cash that they receive, provided that the number of people showing up to branches to withdraw money stays within historical norms. The Federal Reserve Board, the US central bank, sets a requirement, called the reserve requirement for banks, mandating that they keep a certain percentage of their deposits on hand for withdrawals. Issues arise when there are large-scale runs on the banks - when people lose faith in the financial system, and decide to withdraw their money all at once. The truth is that it simply isn’t there most of the time. This can create panic.

One should note that the Federal Reserve (The Fed, for short) operates independently from the US government- the president cannot direct its Chairman, or its most important governing body, the Federal Open Market Committee. The Fed has two stated goals: maximize employment, and provide price stability. Without getting too off topic, these two goals touch on one of the most foundational

25 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 and at the same time questioned foundational pieces of thought in macroeconomics: the Phillips Curve, which states that there is an inverse relationship between inflation and unemployment. Essentially, at low levels of unemployment, the economy can ‘overheat’ and become too inflationary, and rapidly increasing prices can cause mayhem for the consumer. Conversely, low inflation means high unemployment in the short run, according to this curve. It is important to strike a balance. It is obviously very difficult for any government to control unemployment -- one cannot pass laws requiring people to work, for in that case there would be jobs that did not pay enough and did not create enough genuine economic value to actually grow the economy (the classic example is known as the ‘Broken Window Fallacy’: you could task half the workforce with breaking windows and the other half with repairing them, but no economic value is being created, no wealth is being derived, and thus any income earned is artificial and not representative of real value, so the economy will not advance and will rather collapse). However, though it is quite difficult to adjust unemployment directly, manipulating the money supply is relatively easy to do, and of course, increasing the supply of something decreases its value, so price levels can be manipulated accordingly (note that this is a large oversimplification but will be sufficient for our purposes). Think of interest rates as the price of money, and recall that classic supply and demand graph,

in which increasing the supply of something lowers the price. The Fed is able to set key interest rates through a number of instruments, and thus tailor the money supply to stimulate or slow down the economy. Through adjusting the ‘Discount Rate’, the cost at which banks can borrow from the Fed

26 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 itself, the Fed can directly adjust the money supply. However, the number that everyone pays attention to is the Federal Funds Rate, which is the rate at which banks make short term loans to each other. This one rate governs much of the borrowing and lending that happens not in the US but in the World, so when the Fed decides on the Federal Funds Rate, every trading floor in the world goes silent at 2pm Eastern on that day, waiting for the newsflash of whether the Fed has decided to cut or hike rates, or leave them unchanged. In truly exceptional economic circumstances in which economic panic has already caused investors to buy up short term US government bonds (which is how the Fed normally adjusts money supply), driving their prices unusually high, the Fed can turn to other methods to adjusting the money supply that do not necessarily have to do with the Federal Funds rate. Buying longer term bonds/other assets (things you can buy) to adjust the money supply is known as Quantitative Easing (QE), and the starting and stoppage of QE is a major economic event for the world economy. It is relatively rare, although the Bank of Japan has been conducting QE since the 90s with no sign of stopping to try and artificially increase inflation and stimulate the Japanese economy. It has worked to a moderate degree, but the economy would go back to deflation and likely then contraction were QE to stop. Notably, in the US, the Fed controls QE, not the government; however, politicians have lobbied the nonpartisan Fed to adjust monetary policy before. Still though, the job of the President and the Congress is to adjust fiscal policy (taxes, spending, etc) and worry about the other stuff later, while the Fed is responsible for Monetary Policy.

The American Economy

Now, aside from panics, all seems to be well with this system of finance, and it was for many hundreds of years. Things are different now, however. The chief complaints that arise with economic development in general, now, stem from the fact that while the US is getting ever wealthier, the inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth is increasing almost as quickly. It is a noted criticism of this era of economic policy that the tax policy of various administrations do a lot to help the wealthiest of corporations, but not as much to aid the small business, or the factory plant, from which many Americans draw their income. Now this is likely better served as a criticism of globalization, which is the reason that many cite for decimating the so-called ‘rust belt’: manufacturing jobs have left America and have moved to lower cost centres. Many would have the free trade agreements that allow cars made for lower wages in Mexico (and therefore much cheaper

27 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 to American consumers) to be brought back into the United States modified or even cancelled. This is what most economists would term as protectionism. It is hard to find a respectable economist that disagrees with the statement that free trade, in the long run, is beneficial for all parties. The issue that a good administration should focus on is not protecting inefficient jobs (for rather, if Ford can pay a Mexican worker, who needs to be paid less since her cost of living is lower than a line worker in Michigan, who through a combination of higher cost of living and union membership requires a higher wage to be engaged in labor than the Michigan worker is less efficient, since the Mexican worker can provide the same output for a lower resource input) but rather on training and education to ensure that those communities that lose jobs to globalization are able to shift to better, higher paying jobs, and provide improvements to quality of life that free trade asks for.

So, what does all of this have to do with the financial system? One aspect is that capital expenditures, such as investing in training and building new factories that produce goods more efficiently, enriching the community that works in them, require financing, which is provided by the financial sector just the same as the way that the farmer in the previous example bought his equipment. There is, however, a greater issue at hand with this example, and that is the fact that communities in industrialized countries can decline. The region known as the ‘rust belt’, that being those Midwestern states that once flourished due to the industrial production that was so prevalent there, is now coping with the effects of higher paying jobs moving elsewhere. There is a marked contrast between the prosperity of large American corporations in the news and the stagnation (if not recession and economic shrinkage) that these communities have suffered from. Furthermore, if JP Morgan Chase extends a loan to IBM, there are many scenarios in which that is better for them than giving 10 loans of 1/10 the size to small independent contractors in Illinois. JP Morgan wants that loan to drive IBM into doing further business with it, through further borrowing, deposit agreements, or capital markets activities such as equity offerings (issuing new stocks), debt capital markets (issuing debt to the public), which are both ways to raise capital (money that they might need to expand), or other things such as Mergers and Acquisitions (buying and selling businesses to grow IBM) and global markets activities (primarily hedging, which is using financial derivatives, which in their simplest form are insurance policies against risky things such as changes in interest rates, foreign exchange rates, the price of computer components such as lithium and copper, and other things )) so they are going to be willing to dedicate a larger portion of their balance sheet to

28 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 IBM, and perhaps even provide the loan and such a low interest rate that they risk losing money to generate further revenues. Where does this leave those 10 farmers? Well, there are thousands of banks in the US, and many specialize in local community credit. There are also many credit unions that provide simple lending. Still, even though nearly all economists say that financial markets improve economic output and are not just speculative machines, many voters continue to resent banks and bankers for various reasons. It is important to know this as campaign aides, for financial crises do happen, and when they do, there is always a risk that they affect not only Wall Street, but also Main Street.

Alan Greenspan, the long serving chair of the Federal Reserve, has said many times that home ownership is an important part of a modern and successful American life. Of course one usually wants to own one’s home, for as compared to renting, mortgage payments leave you with a house in the end, that you own equity in and can sell, whereas rent is just a cost that you can’t recuperate. Furthermore, the housing market has been not only a solid investment but also one that has provided very consistent returns for time immemorial, in the long run -- real estate is widely regarded as one of the safest investments one can make, provided that there is no bubble going on. However, home loans are of course fairly pricey, given the fact that the home is usually by far the single largest asset that a family owns. In pursuing policies of increased home ownership, not just from the ideological perspective of pursuing the American dream but from the realistic perspective of helping the middle class, the federal government has created two agencies: Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac (these are colloquialisms for acronymic names, and one should essentially regard these two firms as identical). These two government sponsored enterprises are unique in that they are publicly traded companies (i.e. you can buy shares in them) but they can obtain financing at a lower cost than a truly private company, due to the expectation that in the event of financial duress, the US federal government would step in and bail them out, and a lower risk exposure means a lower risk premium, ergo lower borrowing rates. Fannie and Freddie were created to develop the secondary mortgage market. This is not a new idea; Fannie, the older of the two agencies, was created in the 1930s. The idea was that this government agency would buy a bunch of mortgages (mortgages can be bought and sold the same way any debt can) from private lenders such as retail banks, package them into mortgage bonds and other mortgage-backed securities, and then sell them off into the

29 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 open market. These assets would be attractive due to their safety, and banks, having sold the mortgages, could use that cash to lend out that money again and give more people mortgages.

3.E Appendix to 3.D (Economics)

The Housing and Subprime Market as it currently stands today

This simple idea continued to evolve into the massive enterprises that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are today, but also recall that the fixed income market (of which bonds are a major component) is absolutely massive, and is always hungry for more, more, and more. In the 1980s, investment bank Salomon Brothers carried out a series of financial innovations that further proliferated these mortgage bonds and other Asset Backed Securities, and the banks, always hungry to do more business (bond trading is incredibly profitable and was especially so in the 80s -- for further information, I recommend Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis) started giving mortgages to some very undesirable borrowers. The smart people on Wall Street were able to figure out a way to split up the risks associated with these ‘subprime’ borrowers, who were quite likely to default on their mortgages (defaulting means to declare that you can’t pay it back, at which point the bank seizes your house and tries to sell it to pay off your loan, and your creditworthiness goes down the drain for a very long time, meaning it’s quite hard for you to borrow money ever again, and the mortgages were worth nothing) by taking massive stacks of mortgages and packaging the securities in ways that had a ‘tranche’ (the French word for slice or piece) for these BBB and lower rated subprime borrowers, but also some AAA, AA, and A, safer and more desirable debt. BBB debt pays the highest interest (higher risk is higher reward), but in the event of a default, owners of the BBB tranche are last to get paid, meaning that if there is only enough cash to settle the claims of the AAA, AA, and A tranches, the BBB people go home empty handed; they are being compensated for that risk with the higher payments from interest in the interim.

Without getting too much into the invention of the Collateralized Debt Obligation, or CDO (that was the name for these stacks of mortgages - they key to understanding this is the ‘collateralized’ aspect - i.e. the house itself was collateral for the loan, they could repossess it if you defaulted on your loan), one just needs to understand that banks want to sell these bonds, and because of the diversification of the tranching system, the rating agencies have rated these securities to be very safe, even if some

30 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 of the ingredients are quite unsafe indeed. The diversification is meant to assert that in the event of an economic meltdown in a given town, say Joe the Plumber’s community due to a factory closure, the entire asset package that gave birth to these bonds won’t be jeopardized, and so while the BBB owner won’t get as much money as the AAA, AA, and A people when defaults happen, he or she won’t lose everything, unless there is a housing collapse that affects the entire US, due to widespread overlending and this mortgage machine giving way too many people mortgages that they couldn’t possibly afford. Furthermore, a large pile of mortgage backed securities can be turned into another large pile of CDOs, and other synthetic securities, that can further expose even more investors, banks, and other entities to default risk. The issue is that in the event of a crash, a chain reaction could start, because due to these bonds being rated relatively risk-free by the likes of S&P, Fitch, and Moody’s, the banks aren’t expecting widespread defaults and don’t have the cash on hand or the financial markets contingencies (xVA and other derivative risk management tools that are beyond the scope of this guide but are quite cool) associated with such a collapse.

Nothing has happened on such a large scale in the history of the US. However, many investors and hedge fund managers began to notice in 2006 that delinquencies were climbing, and anecdotal stories of ridiculous lending schemes being hatched by mortgage firms that just wanted to make sales were beginning to circulate. Interest rates have started climbing through 2006, after the peak of the housing bubble in 05-06, and subprime lenders are starting to have trouble refinancing. One should note that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are largely minor characters at this point; the mortgage market is roaring along that private companies came in and started to package private MBS (Mortgage Backed Securities) deals at rates much higher than what Fannie and Freddie were willing to stomach, and so while these two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) still back the majority of American home mortgages, these private entities are a formidable force in their own right. These private enterprises were willing to make loans that Fannie and Freddie would rather avoid due to their political mandate to provide housing, among other reasons: rather than providing fixed rate, amortizing mortgages (where your payments are planned out and you don’t have to pay any principal at the end), they began to offer shorter term, floating rate mortgages, that were non- amortizing, meaning that at the end, most people cannot afford to pay the massive principal payment, and have to refinance. Gone are the dog days of the early 2000s with the low interest rates that were designed to spur the economy after the demise of the dot-com bubble; indeed, with

31 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 interest rates climbing, Fannie and Freddie are quite worried about the ability of these borrowers to refinance, or even make their payments. A default crisis could set this entire mortgage market powder keg ablaze, and from reading this, you now know that many times, when Wall Street catches a cold, Main Street gets the flu.

32 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Major Candidates, Democratic Primary

33 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32

34 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32

35 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32

36 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 The Democratic Primary: A Primer

So, you want your candidate to be the President? Then welcome to the land of caucuses, primaries, polling, fundraising, and speech after speech after speech. Ever wonder the difference between a delegate and a superdelegate? What about the difference between Tuesday and Super Tuesday? And why is everyone talking about Iowa and New Hampshire? Wonder no further. By the end of this, you’ll be an expert in the intricacies of the Democratic Primary, so let’s dive in.

First, let’s be clear: if you want to win the Presidency, you must first win the nomination in the primary. Win this, and you have the entire force of the Democratic Party behind you. If you lose, you’re still allowed to run for President… but you’ll be facing an uphill battle. In fact, no candidate has ever lost their party’s nomination and then won the Presidency. Suffice to say, you should really try to win.

The name of the game is “Delegates.” Much like in the general election for President, you don’t have to win the national popular vote to win the nomination. For a few days in late August 2008, 4,223 delegates will meet in Denver to determine the Democratic nominee at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). You need more than half of these delegates (2,117 if you’re keeping track) to become the nominee. If you win a plurality, but not a majority, then things at the convention will get quite interesting, and the Democratic Party will have a lot of say in who becomes the nominee. Delegates are won in primaries and caucuses held in each state, and each state is given a number of delegates proportional to their population. So, it’s more important to win California than to win Wyoming. In the Democratic Primary, delegates are allocated in proportional representation—win 55% of the vote in a state, and approximately 55% of their delegates are obligated to vote for you at the DNC. Then, there are superdelegates. These delegates are party leaders and elected officials, who get to vote for whomever they want. You should make sure these people both like and trust you, especially if it’s a close primary.

Hopefully, we’re on the same page about the importance of delegates. Your next question is probably, “How do I win ridiculously high numbers of delegates and intimidate my opponents into dropping out?” The answer lies in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Super Tuesday. Iowa and New

37 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Hampshire hold the earliest contests, in January 2008: it’s really important to do well here, gaining early support and momentum is key. Super Tuesday is February 5th—23 states and territories hold primaries that day, and 1,681 delegates are up for grabs. Do well in these early races, and you’re well on your way to the nomination.

Delegate System

Pledged Delegates

Pledged delegates make up the vast majority of the people who will be voting at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August 2008--there are 3,566 of them in total! These delegates are distributed proportionally by each state’s population, and are awarded based solely on how many votes you win in a state. For example, Oklahoma has 38 pledged delegates up for grabs. So, if Obama wins 56% of the vote in the Oklahoma Primary, he will be awarded 21 delegates who will vote for him at the DNC (0.56 x 38 = 21.28). Pledged delegates exist for states, territories (Washington DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the US Virgin Islands), as well as for “Democrats Abroad” (US citizens living permanently or temporarily abroad). Below, you can find a table of the exact number of pledged delegates assigned to each state–a helpful tool for figuring out which states are the most important to win (California, New York, Texas, Florida, etc.), and which are… well, less important (the territories, the Dakotas, Alaska, Wyoming, etc.). These should be straightforward–win elections, win delegates!

Table of Pledged Delegate Numbers California 370 Wisconsin 74 Iowa 45 Hawaii 20 New York 232 Indiana 72 South Carolina 45 Idaho 18 Texas 193 Minnesota 72 Oklahoma 38 Montana 16 Florida 185 Missouri 72 Arkansas 35 Delaware 15 District of Pennsylvania 158 Maryland 70 Mississippi 33 Columbia 15 Illinois 153 Tennessee 68 Kansas 32 South Dakota 15 Ohio 141 Arizona 56 West Virginia 28 Vermont 15 Michigan 128 Louisiana 56 New Mexico 26 Alaska 13

38 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 North Carolina 115 Colorado 55 Nevada 25 North Dakota 13 New Jersey 107 Puerto Rico 55 Maine 24 Wyoming 12

Massachusetts 93 Alabama 52 Nebraska 24 Democrats Abroad 7 Georgia 87 Oregon 52 Utah 23 Guam 4 Virginia 83 Kentucky 51 New Hampshire 22 American Samoa 3 Washington 78 Connecticut 48 Rhode Island 21 Virgin Islands 3

Superdelegates

What’s that in the sky? It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s: SUPERDELEGATES! These folks live up to their exciting title, and truly never disappoint. How do superdelegates come into being, you may ask? Who bestows upon them the admirable prefix of “super-” (indeed, a phrase derived from the Latin super, meaning “above” or “beyond”)? The process is quite simple. A superdelegate is a regular, mild-mannered citizen, who has wandered into the labs at the Democratic Party Headquarters (the very same labs where scientists are currently incubating early versions of “ideal” democratic candidates, including Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand, who will soon be released from their test tubes and allowed to run for higher office). After being bitten by a radioactive delegate, the citizen experiences heightened senses, enhanced policy-making ability, slight nausea, and an intensified sense of civic duty–they have been transformed into a superdelegate.

Superdelegates (Actually)

Ok, so the above section is an exaggeration. Superdelegates (also known as unpledged delegates) are another category of folks who will be voting at the DNC, and they differ from regular pledged delegates in a few important ways. First, there are fewer of them--852 superdelegates, as opposed to the 3,566 pledged delegates. These individuals are local party leaders (for instance, the chairman of a local chapter of the Democratic party), elected officials (Senators, Congresspeople, and Governors), and other DNC members. Superdelegates are not won in elections, and are free to cast their vote to whichever candidate they choose. Frequently, winning the primary in a superdelegate’s respective state will make them more likely to vote for you, but it’s far from certain. Though you will

39 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 not know with certainty how a superdelegate votes until the DNC, many superdelegates will offer endorsements or announce their intent to vote for a certain candidate, which is a helpful way to assess how well or poorly the campaign is doing on the route to 2,117 delegates. Below is a table of how many superdelegates are assigned to each state.

Table of Superdelegate Numbers California 71 Virginia 18 Arizona 11 New Hampshire 8

New York 50 Wisconsin 18 Louisiana 11 Delaware 8 Texas 34 Tennessee 17 West Virginia 11 South Dakota 8 Illinois 32 Minnesota 16 Oklahoma 10 Vermont 8 Maryland 30 Missouri 16 Kentucky 9 North Dakota 8 Pennsylvania 29 Georgia 15 South Carolina 9 Nebraska 7

Michigan 29 Colorado 15 Kansas 9 Utah 6 Massachusetts 28 Indiana 13 Nevada 9 Wyoming 6 Florida 26 Oregon 13 Hawaii 9 American Samoa 6 District of Columbia 25 Connecticut 12 Montana 9 Virgin Islands 6 Ohio 20 Iowa 12 Puerto Rico 8 Idaho 5 New Jersey 20 Arkansas 12 Alabama 8 Alaska 5 North Carolina 19 New Mexico 12 Mississippi 8 Guam 5

Washington 19 Rhode Island 12 Maine 8 Democrats Abroad 4

Schedule

Campaigns are fast-moving organizations, often facing important questions of where to allocate resources for the most impactful outcome. Knowing the schedule of primaries is therefore incredibly important, because winning early primaries can give significant momentum, boost name- recognition, increase campaign donations, and have any other number of positive effects. Perhaps the most-watched primary will be the one in Iowa–the very first primary in the race, held on January 3rd, 2008. Iowa is a caucus, which means that eligible voters meet in public buildings or schools in their respective precincts, then talk among themselves and form groups for their preferred candidates. Candidates with less than 15% support get eliminated, until a few remain. Votes are then

40 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 assigned based on group size, after all the below-15% candidates are eliminated and their supporters find a second choice. After Iowa come contests in New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada (also a caucus), South Carolina, and Florida– all before the end of January. February 5th is Super Tuesday, when 23 states and territories hold their contests. This is a lot to keep track of, so below is a table of all the election and caucus dates for the entire duration of the primary season, including the number of delegates up for grabs on a given day. If you cannot win

Date Location Number of Delegates Total Number of Delegates Today January 3 Iowa 45 45 January 8 New Hampshire 22 22 January 15 Michigan 128 128 January 19 Nevada 25 25 January 26 South Carolina 45 45 January 29 Florida 185 185 Alabama 52

Alaska 13

American Samoa 3

Arizona 56

Arkansas 35

California 370

February 5 Colorado 55 (Super Tuesday) Connecticut 48

Delaware 15

Georgia 87

Idaho 12

Illinois 153

Kansas 21

Massachusetts 93 1664

41 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Minnesota 72

Missouri 72

New Jersey 107

New Mexico 26

New York 232

North Dakota 13

Oklahoma 38

Tennessee 68

Utah 23 Democrats February 5-12 Abroad 7 7 Louisiana 56

Nebraska 16 February 9 US Virgin Islands 3

Washington 78 153

February 10 Maine 24 24 Washington DC 15

February 12 Maryland 70

Virginia 83 168

Hawaii 20 February 19 Wisconsin 74 94

Ohio 141

Rhode Island 21 March 4 Texas 193

Vermont 15 370

March 8 Wyoming 7 7 March 11 Mississippi 33 33

42 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 April 22 Pennsylvania 158 158 May 3 Guam 4 4 Indiana 72 May 6 North Carolina 115 187

May 13 West Virginia 28 28 Kentucky 51 May 20 Oregon 52 103

June 1 Puerto Rico 55 55 June 3 South Dakota 15 15 June 3 Montana 16 16

43 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Questions to Consider

As you prepare, consider the answers to these questions. There isn’t just one right answer, but thinking about these will guide your way to being a successful member of this campaign team.

• What does it take to run a sustainable campaign?

• What in the way of financing will it take to sustain a national campaign? How will money be raised/managed?

• How do you keep sourcing volunteers? How do you retain them?

• How do you keep your staff and volunteers excited?

• How do you prevent problems?

• What should be done to prevent leaks? What about corralling leaks that have already happened?

• Who gets to know what? What information makes it to various levels of command?

• Who gets to bring ideas to the table? Does the bright young intern get a seat in the big meeting because she has one good idea? What does it take to earn respect?

• How do you stay competitive?

• How do you deal with campaigning for primaries that you know you aren’t likely to win?

• How do you manage expectations? If they are too high you are bound to disappoint, and if too low nobody will care about you?

• How do you use media?

44 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 • What is your messaging strategy?

• How do you organize?

• How do you use technology?

• How do you craft policies?

• How ideological do you want to be? How much do you want to rely on focus groups, and how much on principles?

• How do you pull ahead of your opponent?

• What does ‘victory’ in any given situation (primary/debate/response to a crisis/position on an issue) look like?

• What are your principles?

• What’s in this not just for Obama, but for you personally?

45 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Character Biographies

Robert Gibbs: Communications Director, Messaging and Policy Advisor

Robert Gibbs’s interest in politics is a longstanding one, stemming from his mother taking him to League of Women Voters meetings in his hometown of Auburn, Alabama. After college, Gibbs worked in communications for a number of representatives and campaigns, leading him to be tapped as Press Secretary for John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential Campaign, where he used aggressive (but effective) campaign tactics to tank the candidacy of Kerry’s rival, Howard Dean. Indeed, Gibbs believes in protecting the reputation of his clients at any cost, which entails rapid responses and urgent pushback against disinformation. Gibbs has been close with Obama since 2004, when he was Communications Director for Obama’s Senate Campaign. As the Communications Director and Messaging and Policy Advisor, Gibbs’ biggest job is coordinating the outward-facing parts of Obama’s campaign, especially by coordinating the relationship between the Obama campaign and the press, and making sure America knows that Barack Obama is the right man for the job.

David Axelrod: Media Strategist

David “the Axe” Axelrod was born in New York but is a Chicagoan at heart. After attending the University of Chicago, Axelrod became the youngest political writer at the Chicago Tribune--a position which landed him jobs with some of Illinois’ biggest names in politics--Senator Paul Simon, Mayors Harold Washington and Richard Daley--and later became the spokesman for John Edwards’ failed campaign for President in 2004. Axelrod and Obama have known each other since 1992, with Obama often coming to Axelrod for political advice. It was only natural, then, for Obama to tap Axelrod as his campaign’s media strategist. In this role, Axelrod is responsible for crafting the overall image, voice, and themes of the Obama campaign. Axelrod is a big believer in the power of individual, ordinary people to create meaningful change, and hopes to implement a campaign strategy that encourages the participation of people.

46 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Betsy Myers: COO

After graduating from UC San Diego with a BBA, Myers worked in the Clinton White House as Director of the Office for Women’s Initiatives and Outreach, serving until 1997, then going on to serve as an administrator in the the US Small Business Administration implementing the Clinton administration’s Welfare to Work program. She obtained a graduate degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government in 2000 and subsequently served as the Executive Director for the Center for Public Leadership. She currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of the campaign, and is tasked with establishing the national campaign operations, in the lens of logistics, Human Resources, organization, coordination with the various field branches and chapters of the campaign, and in general is seen as the head of executing upon the central committee’s ideas. In her words, she leads “with a business mentality and motto of customer service”, which she sees as being central to a good campaign. Myers is passionate about womens’ issues and has been involved with some pro-Obama Womens’ PACs and other organizations, and is eager to further that part of the campaign’s outreach and strategy.

Penny Pritzker: National Finance Director

Born in Chicago and moving to California in her early years, Pritzker grew up surrounded by the high- profile Pritzker family of hoteliers and investors. After attending Harvard for undergrad and Stanford for a JD MBA, she founded an upscale alternative for retirement homes called Vi, and subsequently managed her family’s non-hospitality holdings, before going on to manage the Superior Bank, which was majority owned by Jay Pritzker, the famous private equity investor, who is her uncle and the head of the family business. In 1995, she was named Vice-Head of the family business after Jay’s retirement. She became friends with Obama when he was a professor at the UChicago law school -- they met through a youth basketball program at a local YMCA, and he has been a guest to the family’s house on Lake Michigan many times. Pritzker was a major financier for his 2004 senatorial campaign and is joining this campaign both as someone that will host fundraisers and coordinate fundraising, but will also set up a national fundraising strategy and coordinate cross-country efforts, small and large scale. Her responsibilities revolve chiefly around revenue collection rather than expenses, but she has ambitious plans to reach out to small donors that could change the look of the campaign.

47 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Joel Benenson: Chief Pollster

A graduate of Queen’s College in Brooklyn, NY, Benenson began his career in communications and strategy: in the private sector (most prominently with AOL), then with Mario Cuomo’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign in New York. He subsequently worked briefly as a journalist, and has experience as a polling, strategy, and communications advisor for senatorial, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections, and has held communications roles in the private sector as well. He was a pollster for the DCCC’s very successful 2006 congressional campaign. As chief pollster, it is his job to commission, aggregate, interpret, and utilize polling data, as well as determining how polling resources are to be used, what surveys and questions to ask, and how polling should influence the direction of the campaign.

Eric Holder: Senior Legal adviser and Member, VP Search Committee

Holder is a native New Yorker and Barbadian-America, who attended the prestigious Stuyvesant High School, and Columbia for undergrad and law school. After working for the Department of Justice for 12 years, he served as a Superior Court judge in the District of Columbia and then as US Attorney for DC and Deputy National Attorney General, where he attained notoriety for his sharp prosecution of Dan Rostenkowski in the Post Office Corruption scandal. He briefly returned to the private sector for a DC law firm before joining this campaign as unofficial chief legal advisor; his appointment will become more formal once funding gets better in late 2007, but for now he serves in a pro bono capacity. He advises on issues of electoral law and campaign ethics internally, as well as providing opinions on justice-related policies for the campaign. He is also expected to play a prominent role on the vice president search committee.

Bill Burton: National Press Secretary

Burton grew up in Upstate New York, near Buffalo. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and held his first press secretary job there with Democrat Bill Luther, and Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign, so he is experienced in national politics. He served under Tom Harkin for 2 years, and rose quickly to become communications director for the DCCC during the 2006 congressional campaign. His job places him as the most important connection between the

48 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 campaign and the press, with tasks including strategically leaking information, giving out advance tips, hosting press conferences, drumming up media attention for Senator Obama, or managing difficult situations and controlling the flow of information. It is his responsibility to prevent leaks and to ensure that their sources are found and dealt with accordingly, and he has damage control responsibilities as well.

Jon Carson: National Field Director

Carson was born in the small town of Chasenburg, Wisconsin, and grew up on the family farm. He studied engineering at UW-Platteville where he was elected to the student senate and ran cross country. After being rejected from the Rhodes Scholarship, he obtained a Master’s degree in Geomorphology from UCLA, but a political passion that had been brewing since his undergrad days brought him to volunteer for various democratic campaigns, where he was known for staying away from negative campaigning. He worked as an Iowa organizer for the Gore presidential campaign, and his turn-out-the-vote techniques are credited with having provided a lot of Gore’s success. Carson returned to Wisconsin to support democratic state senators briefly, before ascending to the national state by pioneering innovative voter registration and turnout techniques that relied on Data and Databases in the 2002 South Carolina senate race; the techniques were especially useful in bringing up African-American voter turnout. As field director, Carson will be tasked with implementing database usage, turnout techniques, logistical coordination, and getting around all of the physical barriers and limitations that come with running a national campaign: weather, time zones, transport, and so on. He is excited to reach out to minorities and really have his volunteers form meaningful relationships with voters.

Christina Reynolds: Director of Rapid Response

Reynolds graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a BA in Journalism in 1997, and worked a slew of jobs for various democratic figures, including John Edwards’ 1998 and Tim Johnson’s 2002 senatorial campaigns. She was the senior researcher for the DNC from 1999 to 2002, and the research director for John Edwards’ failed 2004 presidential bid. Serving with the DCCC in research from 2005, she returned to work with the Edwards Campaign this past January, but is being invited to this meeting of the Obama campaign as a member, for she is tired of research and wants to work in the exciting

49 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 field of Rapid Response. Reynolds will be in charge of running the campaign war room, where stories will break and a response will have to be drafted quickly. Based in Chicago, she will be the chief aggregator of all rumors, news, polling data, and comments from the media and other candidates, and will along with her staff, be in charge of distilling and synthesizing the noisy ocean of information that that is into actionable intel for the campaign. Her connections to the Edwards campaign will surely be useful.

Joe Rospars: New Media Director

Rosprars holds a BA in Political Science from GW, and worked for Governor Howard Dean (of ‘Dean Scream’ infamy) at the DNC, and on his botched 2004 presidential campaign. He has been hired because of his expertise with New Media: multimedia tools such as the internet and social channels like Facebook and Myspace, which enables individualistic content sharing and decentralize news coverage away from the mainstream press. Rosprars must contend with this new political arena, in which all voices are equal, all may be heard, and the only barrier to entry is your ability to grab the attention of the user. He has a unique ability to connect with the younger population and is expected to be vital to the Obama Campaign’s youth outreach initiatives. He has become friends with some powerful political consultants over the years and can leverage these connections to advance his goals.

Neera Tanden: Director of Domestic Policy

Tanden’s first political campaign was the presidential bid of Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis (of ‘tank photo’ infamy). She holds a BA from UCLA and a JD from Yale Law School, where she held leadership in the prestigious Yale Law & Policy review. She worked at several DC think tanks and is an expert in issues confronting Americans of Indian descent (both of her parents are from India), and her policy passions are new energy and health care. She fostered this interest after working for President Bill Clinton’s campaigns in the 90s, and maintained a close relationship with the family, having originally served in the Clinton campaign as director of domestic policy before transferring to the Obama campaign prior to the convening of this meeting of the council. She is the chief advisor on domestic policy matters: Justice Department policy, Economic Development, Housing and Urban Development, Criminal Justice, and other non-economic domestic issues.

50 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Denis McDonough: Chief Foreign Policy Aide

A Minnesota native, McDonough was a renowned football player for Saint John’s University, where he graduated with a degree in history and Spanish. He travelled throughout Latin America and spent a year teaching in Belize, before returning to the US to obtain a Master’s in Foreign Service from Georgetown in 1996. He then worked as a congressional aid on the Foreign Affairs committee, focusing on Latin America, and after a brief stint working for Senators Tom Daschle and Ken Salazar, he joined the Center for American progress. With Mark Lippert, Obama’s former Chief Foreign Policy advisor, having been activated from the reserves to fight in Iraq, McDonough has now taken his position. He has the final say on foreign policy and military policy matters, and his connections on the hill, in academia and the think tank community, as well as in the world of defense, both in the armed forces and in the private sector, make him well suited for a job that will require advising Senator Obama on how to deal with increasing instability in the Middle East, two ongoing wars, and changing relations with Western powers and growing economies like China and the rest of the BRICS nations.

Susan Rice: Senior Foreign Policy Advisor

A Truman Scholar at Stanford studying history and a Rhodes Scholar researching international peacekeeping, Rice was lauded for her academic accomplishments before becoming a foreign policy aide to Michael Dukakis’ 1988 campaign. She turned to the private sector, working for McKinsey for 2 years, including a stint in Toronto. She served in the Clinton Administration for 4 years, and was heavily criticized when it came out that she was hesitant about condemning the Rwandan genocide as a genocide because it might look poorly for the upcoming midterms that the Clinton administration was doing nothing -- she has owned up to the mistake and spoken at length about how she regrets it. She returned to the private sector in the early 2000s, before serving in John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign as foreign policy advisor. After 2 years at the Brookings Institution, she joined the Obama campaign. This was seen as a major coup for Obama. She works closely with Denis McDonough; her expertise in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region complements McDonough’s background in Latin America. She is also regarded as an expert on the workings of intergovernmental organizations such as the UN.

51 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Chris Hughes: Developer of Facebook, Software Developer for the Campaign

Born in North Carolina, Hughes attended the prestigious Phillips Andover Academy in New Hampshire before Harvard, where he met Mark Zuckerberg and was recruited to the cause of developing a new social networking tool that is known today as Facebook. Hughes worked on the project as a beta tester, and because of his shrewd business sense (and having come up with several of the most recognizable features of the app) was designated as the firm’s spokesperson. Hughes returned to Harvard after Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz dropped out to finish his degree (in history) before travelling to the West Coast to work on Facebook once again. He took a leave of absence before permanently going to the Obama campaign, working under his own payroll as a volunteer to develop the campaign’s social media strategy and engagement, as well as analyzing much of its technical and technological infrastructure. He is also valued for his connections with Silicon Valley.

Tim Kaine: Co-Chair; Governor of Virginia

Kaine holds a BA from the University of Missouri and a JD from Harvard; in between, he spent 9 months in Honduras, where he became fluent in Spanish. He practiced law in Georgia and Virginia, doing regular pro bono work and specializing in issues related to fair housing, and discrimination in the housing market. He joined the University of Richmond as an adjunct professor in 1988, before being elected to the City Council of Richmond in 1994. He was elected by the council to the Mayor’s office in 1998, where he held a reputation as being a fair and likeable figure able to bridge deep racial tensions in the community. Kaine brought about controversial tough-on-crime measures that lowered the homicide rate.He won a 2001 race for Lieutenant Governor and was later elected Governor in 2006. Seen as a rising star in the party, he gave the Democratic response to the 2006 State of the Union address, and was lauded for his scathing criticism of the Iraq War. Kaine was an early supporter of the Obama campaign (the media claimed that he was his first major endorsement outside of Illinois) and was given the non-executive role of Co-Chair as an honorific, meant to show the campaign’s respect for him. Despite not being an executive officer of the campaign, Kaine is a close confidant of Obama. He is well respected in the Mid-Atlantic region, as well as the Senate, and has many powerful connections at the DNC. He is especially popular among other governors, having served as former Chair of the Southern Governors’ Association.

52 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Christina Romer: Economist from UC Berkeley

Dr. Christina Romer is… well, let’s just say she’s a bit stressed out. After receiving degrees from William and Mary and MIT, and working at Princeton, Romer became a Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research is focused primarily on economic volatility and understanding the factors that led to the Great Depression--overspeculation, high-risk lending, among other factors. She can’t help but notice that America’s current economic situation has at least a few parallels to the period right before the 1929 crash. Most of her colleagues call her predictions of a new recession “alarmist,” but Romer has a really, really bad feeling about this. As an economic specialist, Romer is tasked with making sure that the Obama campaign has safe and effective economic policies which could prevent or mitigate an economic crash. As an academic, she also has a number of friends at her current and past universities--professors and researchers who she hopes to represent as she works on the campaign trail.

Jon Favreau: Chief Speechwriter

Jon Favreau thinks the world would be a lot better if we all just used our words. He attended the College of the Holy Cross, where he led their debate team, was treasurer for the College Democrats, worked with Habitat for Humanity, brought visitors to hospitalized cancer patients, and taught job interview skills to unemployed individuals--in short, Jon’s the type of person who every grandparent thinks their grandkid is. If you asked Jon how he became Chief Speechwriter, he’d tell you “luck.” He worked on the 2004 Kerry campaign, where he was promoted to speechwriter after the last one quit. Right before Obama gave his iconic 2004 DNC keynote, Jon, a 23-year-old intern, interrupted Barack Obama and informed him that he’d have to rewrite part of his speech to avoid an overlap with then- candidate Kerry. Robert Gibbs then recommended Favreau as a speechwriter to Senator Obama in 2005, so Jon joined the campaign as Chief Speechwriter right off the bat. As Chief Speechwriter, Jon writes the majority of Obama’s campaign speeches, and has final say on all statements drafted by the speechwriting team (and can only be overridden by Obama himself). Jon focuses on how speeches can be used to make the average person care about politics, and figuring out how to cut through cynicism to motivate real change.

53 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Howard Learner: Environmental and Energy Policy Adviser

“It’s not easy being green” is written in big letters on Learner’s ceiling--it’s the first thing he sees in the morning, and the last thing he sees at night. After receiving his J.D. from Harvard, Learner worked as an attorney for a while before finding his true calling: environmental advocacy. Learner founded the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC)--the Midwest’s largest environmental advocacy and innovation organization--to focus on clean energy, new forms of transportation, and protecting our ecosystem. On the Campaign, Learner is tasked with managing and creating policies which promote energy efficiency and environmental conservation--as climate change is increasingly a threat in the public eye, Learner will emphasize policies for a green America in the 21st century. Learner has a number of strong connections in the environmental policy world, including lobbyists, environmental activists, scientists, and researchers. He remains the President and Executive Director of the ELPC while he is serving on the campaign.

Michael Slaby: Chief Technology Officer

A 21st century campaign needs 21st century technology, which is where Michael Slaby comes in. Slaby is a fixture in the start-up technology world, and has spent the last 10 years bouncing between technology ventures. He worked briefly for Senator Dick Durbin, whose recommendation landed Slaby at the Obama Campaign to manage the technological side of the campaign. As Chief Technology Officer, Slaby manages the Obama campaign’s databases (fundraising information, voter files, etc.), as well as hardware (campaign cell phones and computers), while also looking for new ways to innovate and use technology. Slaby has built a small empire on the campaign, using his connections across Chicago’s start-up tech world to recruit the best and brightest to maximize the Obama campaign’s outreach to voters. Slaby focuses on using data--addresses, voting records, survey results, Facebook friend networks--to maximize the impact of the Obama campaign in targeted outreach and messages. Slaby knows that politics needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the digital era, and intends to make that his mission on the Obama Campaign.

54 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 John Brennan: Foreign Policy and Intelligence Adviser

Brennan has been in this game for a while now. He worked at the CIA ever since he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980, and has focused primarily on counterterrorism since the mid-1990s. He gave daily intelligence briefings to President Clinton, was appointed Deputy Executive Director of the CIA in 2001, and led the Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003- 2004. Brennan left the CIA to work at a handful of private national security consulting firms,before Obama’s campaign tapped him to be their Foreign Policy and Intelligence Advisor. In this role, Brennan uses his intelligence-gathering connections to brief the campaign on world events and advises policy solutions for foreign developments. Brennan is a bit of an establishment type, and his ideal foreign policy solutions often clash with the younger generation of foreign policy experts, such as Samantha Power. Brennan knows the value of having friends in high places, and remains in contact with his former CIA colleagues, as well as a number of foreign diplomats,.

Samantha Power: Journalist and Foreign Policy Academic

Samantha Power has been around the block. Right after graduating from Yale, she worked as a war correspondent, covering the Yugoslav Wars from 1993-96. She then got her J.D. from Harvard before founding the Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was Executive Director until 2002. As of 2007, Power writes a weekly column in TIME Magazine. She became involved as a foreign policy fellow with the office of Senator Obama in 2005 and joined his Presidential Campaign as soon as it launched. Power brings to the campaign her expertise as a journalist and foreign policy professor. She is responsible for advising the campaign not only on journalistic outreach, but also for bringing a fresh voice to issues of foreign policy (often disagreeing with the campaign’s other foreign policy advisors). Power is a strong believer in the ability of tough, principled, and engaging diplomacy to solve global conflict, placing her goals in stark contrast to the warhawk solutions often utilized by recent presidents.

55 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Michael Froman: Citigroup Executive and Economic Advisor

Michael Froman has been bouncing between the public and private sectors ever since he graduated from Harvard (where he was acquaintances with then-student Obama) with a law degree. Froman worked in international economics, focusing on economic policy towards the former Soviet Union, and he rose through the ranks of the Treasury Department to become Chief of Staff to Secretary Robert Rubin under the Clinton Administration. Froman then migrated to Citigroup, where he managed investments in infrastructure and development. Froman reached out to Obama, his former classmate, in 2004, offering economic policy advice for his Senate run. Now, on the Presidential Campaign, Froman has returned to provide economic insights as well as serve as a liaison between the Obama Campaign and the private financial sector, where Froman has many close connections. Froman hopes to bring his economic experience and private sector insights to craft sustainable economic policies for the campaign.

Steve Hildebrand: Deputy Campaign Manager, Iowa Specialist

In the world of political consulting, Steve Hildebrand is what you’d call “a big deal.” For the majority of his professional career, Hildebrand has worked to catapult politicians to the top, especially in the Midwest. He has served as the Executive Director of the Democratic Parties of South Dakota and Minnesota, managed the Campaign of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) in 2002, and rocketed Al Gore to victory in the 2000 Iowa Caucuses. Hildebrand’s experience has made him a vital player in the Democratic Party, with connections across the country and a specialty in figuring out how to win in the critical Iowa Caucus. Presently, Hildebrand also runs a private political consulting firm, Hildebrand-Tewes Consulting. On the Campaign, Hildebrand is tasked with masterminding field operations--organizing volunteers, running national offices, and other logistical matters. He plans to use his exceptional experience to ensure Obama’s Campaign runs like a well-oiled machine.

56 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Devorah Adler: DNC Research Director

After studying English at the University of Michigan (Go Wolverines!) and obtaining a Master’s in Health Policy from the Johns Hopkins University in 1998, Devorah Adler worked a variety of domestic policy jobs in the Clinton Department of Health and Human Services and White House, before serving on a Gubernatorial campaign in Maryland and a Senate campaign, both times on the policy side. Working on Capitol Hill from 2003 to 2005 in various policy consulting positions, she was appointed Research Director of the DNC in 2005. She served in that job for two years,until joining this campaign. As Research Director, she is responsible for using polling data to inform and motivate policy decisions, researching opinions and developing campaign positions on the issues. She also is the go-to opposition research coordinator for the campaign and is thus responsible for digging up dirt on other candidates. She also performs ‘counterintelligence’ for the Obama campaign in which she preempts opposition research from the other side.

Alyssa Mastromonaco: Scheduling and Advance Coordinator

Originally from New York State, Mastromonaco graduated from UW-Madison with a BA in Political Science in 1998, citing hearing then-Representative Bernie Sanders deliver an address in her sophomore year with informing her passion for politics and progressive change. She interned for Sanders before joining Senator John Kerry’s staff in 2000. She briefly worked in the lobbying sector for the American Beverage Institute, before getting hired by Congressman Rick Boucher of Virginia in 2002, only to leave after a few short months to return to work for Kerry. She served as the Director of Scheduling for his ultimately unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign,and soon thereafter joined Obama’s 2004 senatorial campaign in the same job, where she met many other people on this committee. Mastronomaco served as political director for Obama’s PAC last year before joining the campaign at its conception as Director of Scheduling. In what is obviously a very important and fairly thankless job, Mastromonaco manages the candidate’s logistics, media availability, scheduling, travel budget and timing. She also serves an important troubleshooting role for when plans go awry or when the Senator, as is his wont, gets to talking and starts running behind schedule.

57 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Anita Dunn: Communications, Research and Policy Adviser

Anita Dunn was born in Maryland in 1958. Dunn worked for Ohio Senator John Glenn for almost 10 years starting 1984, before joining the private sector, and then Bill Bradley’s successful senatorial campaign as communications director. Working under various senators and then as communications director for Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, she joined the Obama PAC, the Hopefund, in 2006 as communications and strategy director. The press picked up on this and began to suspect that Obama was planning on running for president, and since then, Dunn has been instrumental in coordinating communications and messaging with the otherwise somewhat detached research and policy departments, and ensuring that resources are spent in a way that maximizes output and minimizes redundancy between those two departments. She is also a close personal confidant of Obama.

Dennis Ross: Foreign Policy Legal adviser

Originally from California, Ross had a privileged childhood, attending private high school before going to Stanford University. He wrote a doctoral dissertation on Soviet decision-making that earned him a spot in the Department of Defense of Jimmy Carter’s administration, where he rotated through dealing with the Persian Gulf, and how events there affect the Arab-Israeli conflict and America’s oil needs. He stayed on through the Reagan administration, gaining experience in the Near East and South Asian affairs. After briefly returning to academia, he joined the George HW Bush administration as a Soviet Specialist and also worked on the reunification of Germany. President Clinton appointed him Mideast Envoy in 1993, and he aided negotiations for the 1995 interim agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Israel-Jordan peace treaty. While he came under fire in the press for holding a strong pro-Israel bias at times, he was admired in the intelligence community for his efforts. He returned to a Washington-based think tank in the early 2000s, wrote for various newspapers, taught at various universities, and was noted for his support of the War in Iraq. His job with the campaign is to use his breadth of foreign policy experience to provide advice on policy decisions. He also facilitates connections with the Pentagon and State Department in order to bolster the campaign’s foreign policy qualifications. .

58 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Arne Duncan: Education Advisor

Arne Duncan loves two things: basketball and public education.. Duncan grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago; ironically, he lived across the street from the prestigious University of Chicago and attended a private high school affiliated with the University, yet the public schools all around him were subpar, failing their students and communities. This early-life experience set Duncan on a trajectory to ensure all children receive the same high-quality education he did. Duncan graduated from Harvard with a degree in Sociology, returning to Chicago to gather research for a thesis about education in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood. After graduation, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia for a few years, then settled back down in Chicago to manage an initiative tutoring students at low-performing elementary schools. By 2001, Duncan had made a name for himself as a champion of bringing failing schools back from the brink, leading Mayor Richard Daley to appoint Duncan the C.E.O. of the Chicago Public Schools system, where he remains today. On the campaign, Duncan advises the team on education policy, with a particular focus on reforming America’s focus on standardization and mass-testing, and improving the poor conditions in America’s urban schools. Duncan is impassioned about ensuring that every child be afforded a quality education.

Heather Higginbottom: Senior Policy Strategist

Got a problem? Heather Higgonbottom has a plan to solve it. Higginbottom grew up in Binghamton, New York, attended the University of Rochester for college, and graduated from the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy at George Washington University with a Master’s in Public Policy. Everywhere she went, Higgonbottom was the most organized, meticulous, and detail-oriented person in the room. This naturally led her to the world of public policy, where she can focus on the design and implementation of real-world solutions. She became Senator John Kerry’s Legislative Director, overseeing all his policy matters and became Kerry’s Deputy Policy Director for his failed 2004 Presidential Campaign. After that campaign, she became Executive Director of the American Security Project, a nonpartisan policy think tank in Washington, before the Obama Campaign tapped her to serve as a Policy Strategist. In this role, Higginbottom coordinates the many policy plans of the Obama Campaign, and offers advice on the feasibility and possible implementation of

59 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 the plans. Higginbottom worries that some of these plans may be great in theory, but lack the necessary detail and foresight--so she intends to be a voice of reason.

60 Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign, 2007 | MUNUC 32 Bibliography

Amanda Ripley, “The Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” Time, April 9, 2008, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729685,00.html.

"America Votes 2004: U.S. Senate/Illinois". CNN. Retrieved July 6 2019

Bacon Jr., Perry (8/ 27, 2007). "The Outsider's Insider". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 6 2019

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