By Jueseppi B.
NADAV KANDER FOR TIME
2012 Person of the Year: Barack Obama, the President
By Michael Scherer Dec. 19, 2012 For Time Magazine
Twenty-seven years after driving from New York City to Chicago in a $2,000 Honda Civic for a job that probably wouldn’t amount to much, Barack Obama, in better shape but with grayer hair, stood in the presidential suite on the top floor of the Fairmont Millennium Park hotel as flat screens announced his re-election as President of the United States. The networks called Ohio earlier than predicted, so his aides had to hightail it down the hall to join his family and friends. They encountered a room of high fives and fist pumps, hugs and relief.
Two years ago, Republicans liked to say that the only hard thing Obama ever did right was beating Hillary Clinton in the primary, and in electoral terms, there was some truth to that. In 2012 the GOP hoped to cast him as an inspiring guy who was not up to the job. But now we know the difference between the wish and the thing, the hype and the man in the office. He stands somewhat shorter, having won 4 million fewer votes and two fewer states than in 2008. But his 5 million-vote margin of victory out of 129 million ballots cast shocked experts in both parties, and it probably would have been higher had so much of New York and New Jersey not stayed home after Hurricane Sandy.
He won many of the toughest battlegrounds walking away: Virginia by 4 points, Colorado by 5 and the lily white states of Iowa and New Hampshire by 6. He untied Ohio’s knotty heartland politics, picked the Republican lock on Florida Cubans and won Paul Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wis. (Those last two data points especially caught the President’s interest.) He will take the oath on Jan. 20 as the first Democrat in more than 75 years to get a majority of the popular vote twice. Only five other Presidents have done that in all of U.S. history.
Read The Entire Time Magazine Man Of The Year article here at Time Magazine
The Campaign Team: David Simas ran Obama’s opinion-research team, including focus groups; Stephanie Cutter managed the daily effort to defend Obama and dismantle Romney; David Axelrod, co-author of the Obama campaign story, oversaw the entire strategy from Chicago; Jim Messina, the campaign manager, designed, built and ran the whole campaign from scratch; Jim Margolis, the TV adman, relentlessly bombarded swing-state airwaves for months; Jeremy Bird, the grassroots organizer, created a smarter, larger Obama army than in 2008. Photo: BJARNE JONASSON FOR TIME.
Through crises and gridlock, President Barack Obama kept the trust of the American people – and won a chance to rekindle the hope that inspired a nation. Read the full article.
COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY NADAV KANDER FOR TIME
Inside the White House: Never-Before-Seen Photos
Pete Souza’s Portrait of a Presidency
“The President works on his Newtown speech. Two days earlier, I photographed him when John Brennan first briefed him on the shootings. Throughout that day, he reacted as we all did, which people witnessed when he delivered his statement a few hours later. Before we headed to Newtown for the Sunday night vigil, he went to watch his daughterSasha, 11, rehearse for her ballet performance in the Nutcracker. He was going to miss her performance that night because of the trip to Newtown. During breaks in the rehearsal, he worked on the speech. His expression in this photograph may be subtle to the viewer, but not to me. There is emotion and resolve etched on his face, and I know this was perhaps the toughest day of his Presidency.”
See More Than 120 White House Photos From The Lens Of Pete Souza At Inside the White House: Never-Before-Seen Photos
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Jueseppi B.
He truly deserve it .. If anyone can survive all the world problems that he shoulders just this year alone … Then .. He deserves a whole lot more … Potus Barack Obama … We all love him …
Reblogged this on Bell Book Candle.
Thank you Mr. Rhett for this reblog. Very historical President, in more ways than one.