Plouffe Time

David Plouffe, the Obama tactician, has a new book out and it's excerpted in Time. Crossing genres between political memoir and business advice book, it's called "The Audacity to Win." The new excerpts seem appropriately kind to the boss who brilliantly takes charge of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair with an oh-so-brilliant speech on race and who magnanimously considers Hillary Clinton for veep even while Plouffe and David Axelrod don't take the idea seriously. The weighty presence of Bill Clinton pushes her out of the final cut which includes no women--just three guys, Joe Biden, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and Evan Bayh--who may become this generation's Dianne Feinstein, considered every four years and never getting the nod. Plouffe takes a gentle shot at Biden's famed locquaciousness but makes it clear that the veteran senator's experience and candor more than made up for it. I'd thought at the time that Obama would go with Kaine and double down on change in lieu of experience, and Obama did seem to consider it. I can't say the excerpt made me wanna read the whole thing, but I don't think we'll get a very revealing or cutting memoir from an Obamaite anytime soon.