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Excerpts from the book, already presented to President Obama on Air Force One by Plouffe. The book has been heavily embargoed until November 3rd, but Time was granted some enticing excerpts:

" 'How They Did It: In a new memoir, 'The Audacity to Win,' David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama's 2008 race for the White House, provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse inside the campaign and offers new details about the key moments that catapulted Obama to the White House': 'As was the case throughout the campaign, most people did not watch the [race] speech on TV. It was delivered on a Tuesday morning, when just about everyone was at work. Instead, people watched it online, most of them on YouTube, either as it was happening or a! t their leisure later that day or in the days to come. Eventually, tens of millions of voters saw the speech through various outlets. This marked a fundamental change in political coverage and message consumption, and one that will only continue as technology rolls forward: big moments, political or otherwise, will no longer be remembered by people as times when everyone gathered around TVs to watch a speech, press conference or other event. Increasingly, most of us will recall firing up the computer, searching for a video and watching it at home or at the office-or even on our cell phones. ...

'[W]hat surprised me at [our first meeting to discuss the vice presidency] was that Obama was clearly thinking more seriously about picking Hillary Clinton than Ax and I had realized. He said if his central criterion measured who could be the best VP, she had to be included in that list. She was competent, could help in Congress, would have international bona fides and had been through this before, albeit in a different role. He wanted to continue discussing her as we moved forward. We met again a couple of weeks later in mid-June and winnowed the list down to about 10 names. At our next meeting, we narrowed the list down to six. Barack continued to be intrigued by Hillary. ... Neither Ax nor I were fans of the Hillary option. We saw her obvious strengths, but we thought there were too many complications, both pre-election and postelection, should we be so fortunate as to win. Still, we were very careful not to object too forcefully. This needed to be his call. ... In early ! August, he narrowed his list down to three names: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana and Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia. ... The selection of his vice-presidential nominee was his first presidential decision. On the evening of Aug. 17, he called Ax and me with the news. 'I've decided,' he said. 'It's Biden.' ...

'With the Palin pick, [Senator McCain] had completely undermined his core argument against us. Worse yet for McCain, he would look inherently political in doing so. His strength-and the threat he posed to us-was rooted in the fact that many independent voters believed in his maverick reputation and believed he did not make his decisions by prioritizing politics over what was right. I guessed people would view this choice more as a political stunt than a sound, reasoned call. On our 6:00 a.m. conference call, [campaign adviser] Anita Dunn, who had worked against Palin in Alaska in the 2006 governor's race, warned us that she was a formidable political talent-clearly not up to this moment, she assured us, but bound to be a compelling player and a real headliner in the weeks ahead. 'All of you on this call should watch video of her debates and speeches,' Dunn counseled. 'The substance is thin, but she's a very able performer. And her story is out of Hollywood. She'll be a pheno! menon for a while.' ...

'Obama and I had a long talk late that afternoon to evaluate Palin. 'I just don't understand how this ends up working out for McCain,' he said. 'In the long term, I mean. The short term will be good for them. But when voters step back and analyze how he made this decision, I think he's going to be in big trouble. You just can't wing something like this-it's too important. ... I think we just need to sit back and play our game,' said Obama. 'It actually won't be bad to be off-Broadway for a few days. We should just leave her out of the equation. This is a race between John McCain and me. To the extent we talk about Palin, I think it should be about the differences in our selection processes-it illuminates differences in how we'd make decisions in the White House.'"

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