By Staff
David Plouffe.
Valerie Jarrett.
Pete Rouse.
Julius Genachowski.
David Axelrod.
Tom Daschle.
Sen. Barack Obama's top advisers aren't household names in the James Carville or Karl Rove sense, even after creating a grassroots political organization that mobilized 1.5 million donors to raise $250 million and stripped Hillary Clinton of the cloak of inevitability she wore in 2007.
Obama prevailed in the long slog to the Democratic White House nomination in an epic battle that could be dubbed the "Dream Machine vs. the Drama Queens."
Those who regard Obama as a vague, inexperienced lightweight ought to keep in mind the demonstration he gives of his chief executive skills as the builder and boss of one of the most effective political teams – one that weds old-style grassroots activism with the Internet – and employs almost 1,000.
You don't know most of the names above because Obama convinced his advisers early on to check their egos at the door, avoid infighting and function as a team.
Last December, Mitt Romney dismissed Obama as "a guy who has virtually no experience of an executive nature, leadership nature – never run anything."
Judgment and the capacity for good leadership should trump experience in dysfunctional Washington.
Obama's style is said to be more of a listener than a talker when he runs meetings, decisive and a capable delegater.
Sure, Axelrod, the chief strategist who is a former Chicago Tribune reporter, is occasionally quoted in the media.
He coined Bill Clinton's "bridge to the 21st century."
And, yes, Daschle, was Senate majority leader.
But did you even know of his role in Obama's brain trust with the low profile he's kept?
The Obama model isn't just bigger than what previous Democratic campaigns managed, it's won accolades for being more democratic and for tapping into hopeful aspirations of everyday people who felt shut out of politics.
It's a paradox that the organization that famously empowered so many volunteers on the ground while Clinton looked like she was trying to turn a battleship brought discipline to the chaos usually associated with Democratic White House runs. Democrats have not previously been known for being tight-lipped and controlled. Clinton's advisers clashed noisily and publicly and were bedeviled by leaks.
Obama is positioned as a fresh face and Washington outsider, but his team also deftly blends in seasoned insiders, such as Rouse, who served as Daschle's chief of staff before he became Obama's.
Ironically, Rouse's availability owes to Rove, who masterminded the 2004 election that not only delivered Obama to Washington from Illinois, but made Daschle, of South Dakota, the first minority leader ever unseated.
It comes full circle with Obama aiming to end the cynical politics for which Rove became a household name.
As Obama told his Chicago staff in June after clinching the nomination, "The way great things happen is when people are willing to submerge their own egos and focus on a common task."
"This is the dream team for the dream candidate," GOP strategist Frank Luntz has said. "I waited all my life for a Republican Barack Obama. Now he shows up, and he's a Democrat."