In a campaign that has been peppered with smears, gaffs, ups and downs, it’s nice to see lighter moments on the campaign trail. Tonight, with Obama clinching the election, we were able to witness the payoff of what is perhaps the longest running practical joke in election history.
Speaking to his supporters to declare victory, you could see the repressed giggles as Obama declared what a hard road they fought. "It was looking a little scary at one point, looking a bit close, but I’m glad we pulled through in Indiana and North Carolina and got the 350 electoral votes we needed.
At that point the whole crowd burst out in laughter in front of the very confused President Elect. David Axelrod was the first person to get it together enough to let Obama know that he’d only needed 270 and they’d been telling him it was 350 ever since the primaries. David Plouffe, a well known practical joker came up with the idea after they won in Iowa. It took a full two months of everyone around Obama saying they needed 350, and a few confused stares when Obama asked if that was really the necessary number before the candidate went with the flow. "Just like those Obama is a secret Muslim things, you hear something enough, even something patently wrong, you start thinking it’s true." Plouffe commented later in between laughs.
Obama, for his part, is taking it in good humor considering in January he’ll be the most powerful man on the planet. "That Dave, I should have known he’d pull something like this. Wow, if I’d known all I needed was 270 this would have been a lot easier. I mean, campaigning in North Carolina, Arizona? God, talk about icing on the cake."
Asked why he would play what could have been such a cruel joke if Obama had received 270 votes but not 350, Plouffe explained it was a matter of campaign strategy as well. "Obama is disciplined, and I knew no matter what challenge we set up for him he’d work to achieve it. From the beginning we said we would campaign like we’re ten points behind, so I thought, why not campaign like we have a handicap too?"
The results of the prank certainly look fruitful. Obama beat his opponent in a landslide, an estimated 45 electoral votes won in states Obama never would have put as much effort in had he known the real electoral target. "We long ago envisioned the 50 state strategy, but you know there’s campaigning in a state, and there’s campaigning. If I’d known I only needed 270 I probably would have taken that public financing after all."
"We really had to filter him." Axelrod said with a laugh. "I mean, Obama’s a smart guy and it took a lot of to keep him thinking we needed 350. We faked a few newspapers, just replacing the number...heck we even hijacked CNN with a fake "Path to 350" program this one time." Palin, after learning of the joke insisted this proves Obama could have been fooled into thinking there were WMD’s in Iraq..."not that it’s been proven there weren’t," she added. Axelrod insists Obama was so caught up in campaigning it was easier to pull the wool over his eyes on just a simple number. "There’s a difference between making the goalposts look a little farther and convincing the man he’s actually playing baseball even though he’s wearing shoulder pads."