There's a much bigger story than the Rev. Jesse Jackson's faux pas on a slow summer news day: Take a closer look at the Barack Obama campaign infrastructure. Reference "Obama's Brain Trust," the July 10 Rolling Stone article by Tim Dickinson. He focused on Obama's top advisers who seem to relish their ability to maintain team discipline and operate in near anonymity. Since last summer, team Obama has hummed along efficiently, while rivals and opponents sputter, wheeze and even break down. A bitter truth for the failed Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign was her team of advisers was out of control. They didn't take care of her or even have her back.
Dickinson wrote, "The drama-free [Obama] approach proved to be in sharp contrast to the Clinton campaign, which was beset by leaks and infighting among factions of overbearing strategists [Mark Penn], know-it-all advisers [Harold Ickes], egotistical flacks [Howard Wolfson] and self-important campaign managers [Patti Solis Doyle] who battled noisily - and publicly - over message, budget, access to the candidate and prestige."
My ears perked up Thursday when I heard a McCain strategist tell NPR that they are going to try and take women and Hispanic votes from Obama by saying the Illinois senator stole their dream by denying the election of the first woman president.
No, Obama didn't steal anything. As his campaign got more confident during the primary and caucus cycles, Clinton's collapsed like a sand castle.
Meanwhile, all is not healthy inside team McCain. Last week he restructured his campaign staff again, and now former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm, a McCain economic adviser, called America a nation of whiners and gave the GOP nominee heartburn.
Most of Obama's leading advisers are white men. Why bring race - and gender - into this? Because political cynics or older voters with "Baracknophobia" suggest Obama's presidency would be a sinister black takeover. No, Obama has been running a mainstream campaign, much to the consternation of civil rights warriors like Jackson. It also should be no surprise that the Columbia and Harvard educated candidate would make good use of the contacts he cultivated in school and later in politics.
The top adviser of color noted in Dickinson's piece was Valerie Jarrett, the black woman with the alias "The other side of Barack's brain." The senior adviser is the daughter-in-law of the late Vernon Jarrett, and Vernon Jordan, former National Urban League head and longtime FOB [Friend of Bill Clinton], is her great uncle.
We're still a long way from the Democratic National Convention in Denver in late August. Although Obama is the presumptive nominee, don't assume a coronation just yet. There's plenty of time of drama, mischief and distractions.
Right now it appears that Obama's advisers are well structured to withstand inevitable bumps in the road. They avoid calling attention to their success. They'd like to continue to hum along in anonymity, and win.
