Obama the delegator picks when to take reins

By Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg

updated 11:25 p.m. ET June 15, 2008

WASHINGTON - In the months leading up to Senator Barack Obama’s big loss in the Pennsylvania primary, he was a detached manager: around, but not meddling. Rarely on early-morning conference calls with his senior advisers, he delegated most decisions to others and did not immerse himself in all of the nuts and bolts of running for president.

After that defeat in April, a friend gave Mr. Obama an urgent piece of advice: “Put your hand on the tiller.”

And that Mr. Obama did. He began participating in more strategy sessions, spoke out against a summertime gasoline tax suspension more forcefully than some advisers initially preferred, and last week was involved in conference calls that led to the departure of James A. Johnson, the man leading the campaign’s vice-presidential search.

He did not assign blame for the first big misstep of the general election campaign, participants said. But he asked his aides to assess the gravity of the problem and listened as they charted a course to proceed.

Mr. Obama did not deliver the bad news himself — he seldom does — but he accepted the resignation of Mr. Johnson, who faced Republican criticism for getting cut-rate mortgages from the troubled lender Countrywide Financial.

Trial by fire
Like most presidential candidates, Mr. Obama is developing his executive skills on the fly, and under intense scrutiny. The evolution of his style in recent months suggests he is still finding the right formula as he confronts a challenge that he has not faced in his career: managing a large organization.

The skill will become more important should he win the presidency, and his style is getting added attention as the country absorbs the lessons of President Bush’s tenure in the Oval Office. Mr. Bush’s critics, including former aides, have portrayed him as too cloistered, too dependent on a small coterie of trusted aides, unable to distinguish between loyalty and competence, and insufficiently willing to adjust course in the face of events that do not unfold the way he expects.

Mr. Obama’s style so far is marked by an aversion to leaks and public drama and his selection of a small group of advisers who have exhibited discipline and loyalty in carrying out his priorities. The departure of Mr. Johnson, who was brought in to provide managerial experience to the vice-presidential search, was a rare instance of the campaign’s having to oust one of its own in the midst of a messy public crisis.

He reads widely and encourages alternative views in policy-making discussions, but likes to keep the process crisp. He is personally even-keeled, but can be prickly when small things go wrong.

Focused on the big picture
As the chief executive officer of Obama for America, a concern of nearly 1,000 employees and a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, Mr. Obama is more inclined to focus on the big picture over the day-to-day whirl.

He delegates many decisions, and virtually all tasks, to a core group that oversees a sprawling, yet centralized operation in his Chicago campaign headquarters, which going into the general election season is absorbing many of the political functions of the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Obama stays connected to advisers and friends via a BlackBerry, sending frequent but unsigned messages that are to the point. A discussion that cannot be conducted in a sentence or two is likely to be finished by telephone.

A night owl, Mr. Obama is known to send e-mail messages well after midnight. Laurence H. Tribe, his Harvard law professor who now serves as an informal adviser, said he received an e-mail message from the candidate at 1:30 a.m. on June 4, when he had received enough delegates to claim the nomination.

In interviews with more than two dozen senior advisers, campaign aides and friends, a portrait of Mr. Obama emerges as a concerned but not obsessive manager. By now, his associates have learned, there is no need to deluge him with unnecessary details, so long as someone knows them.

Man of mixed temperament
No state was more important to his candidacy than Iowa, but when he arrived there for campaign visits he stopped aides who tried to give detailed accounts of developments.

“I’d get in the car with him and talk a mile a minute,” recalled Paul Tewes, who was the campaign’s state director. Mr. Tewes recalled that on the candidate’s fifth visit to the state, Mr. Obama interrupted one of his detailed updates, saying: “You know what, Paul? All I want from you is for you to do your best, and I trust you and you know what you’re doing.”

On policy issues, Mr. Obama can have a photographic memory of intricate details, but he often struggled to remember the names of local political supporters he had met. A cool demeanor on primary election nights, even in defeat, can give way to a short temper when a speech text is not on the podium, a loudspeaker crackles or an aide has not brought over a throat-soothing herbal tea.

“Who’s handling sound? Who’s handling sound?” he snapped at his staff when a microphone repeatedly went haywire at a campaign event in South Carolina.

Most high-level gatherings involving Mr. Obama are held either in his kitchen or at an office away from campaign headquarters, and are expected to unfold in an orderly manner. Written agendas and concise briefings are preferred.

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He does not stir dissent simply for dissent’s sake, but often employs a Socratic method of discussion, where aides put ideas forward for him to accept or reject. Advisers described his meetings as “un-Clintonesque,” a reference to the often meandering, if engrossing, policy discussions Bill Clinton presided over when he was president.

“He doesn’t sit there for hours chewing on it and discussing it,” said Susan Rice, a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama who worked in the Clinton administration. “He’s very thorough, yet efficient about it.”

If a presidential campaign is intended to be a test-run for the presidency, his chief priorities are the words in his speeches, messages in his television advertising and policy pronouncements. On other matters, even if he disagrees, he often allows himself to be overruled.

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