Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna is an editorial intern at Politico Magazine.

Eight years ago, on the first Tuesday in November, a few dozen road-tested campaign staffers woke up—or simply gave up trying to sleep—in their apartments and hotel rooms in Chicago and prepared to witness history. For the better part of two years they had toiled on behalf of a young senator from Illinois as he waged an improbable run for the nation’s highest office. By November 4, there was very little to do but wait.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama was a historic moment, and in retrospect it seems like a certainty. Obama took just under 53 percent of the vote over Senator John McCain, a share that wasn’t wildly out of sync with the polls going into Election Day. But for the inner circle of a candidate nothing is a lock until it happens. There’s uncertainty about how many volunteers will “flake out” on Election Day, about the weather forecast in tight states and even when the candidate should vote to avoid any political embarrassment.


A win on Tuesday by Hillary Clinton would also be historic, but her triumph as the first female president would be owed in large part to the power of a political machine that has amassed a deep bench of talent over decades. Obama’s victory in 2008 elevated an inexperienced senator with a team of Chicago loyalists and Democratic operatives.

What is it really like to sit at the cusp of a presidency, even the cusp of history, without any idea what will really happen? Politico reached out to 16 people who were in the campaign’s war room or at Senator Obama's side that day, from his top campaign strategist to the person who carried his phone. They drew a picture of a bunch of sleep-deprived yet adrenaline-fueled campaign workers who were prepared for a momentous result and yet still stunned when it arrived, working through their anxieties by eating and not eating, gossiping and ridiculing the gossip, and even playing pickup basketball.





I. Daybreak

Jon Carson, national field director: I woke up at like 3:00 a.m. or something, and I actually remember I cut myself shaving. And so here it was, Election Day, it was the culmination of more than two years of work, millions of volunteers around the country—and I had one of those stupid pieces of toilet paper on my lip.

Reggie Love, personal assistant to Senator Obama: The last day of the lease for the campaign plane was on Election Day, and there wasn’t going to be a chance to clean up the plane on the day that the lease ended, so I stayed the night before until like 4 in the morning, cleaning out a year’s worth of stuff that had been stored on the plane, which was a little nostalgic, too. So I got to the hotel at like 5 o’clock in the morning, and he was going to vote first thing in the morning, so I think I slept maybe like an hour at most.

Melissa Winter, traveling chief of staff to Michelle Obama: Let’s be honest about the amount of sleep that I got that last night: It was probably none.

David Axelrod, chief media strategist: I went down to the lobby of my building, which was a high rise. It was so big that it was its own precinct. And the election judge told me that they were going to run out of ballots, which was probably mid morning or something. And that was extraordinary, which told me what kind of turnout there was going to be.

Reggie Love: It was the most amazing weather anybody had ever seen for a first week of November.

Arun Chaudhary, new media road director: The weather was always so weird with Obama. Whenever he would show up, it would stop raining.

Tommy Vietor, rapid response: You were just a ball of nerves. Election Day is the worst day in any campaign. For the field team, it’s all hands on deck. For the press people, there is no real relevant news. It’s just exit polls, gossip, anecdotal evidence and nothing interesting.

David Axelrod: All you can do is call around and say, “Well, what do you hear? What do you hear?” And of course, nobody has really heard much.





II. Making Sure Obama Doesn’t Vote With The Wrong People

Tommy Vietor: At like 6:55 a.m., Jen Psaki, who is prepositioned with the pool, sent us an email that said that [former Weather Underground leader] Bill Ayers is voting and posing for pictures at Obama’s polling place. I think our response was, “You’ve got to be f---ing kidding me.” It was terrible, but also the funniest possible thing for us, that someone who’d been such a source of controversy was now walking in front of our pool of reporters.

Robert Gibbs, senior strategist for communications and message: I got on my phone and told then Senator Obama to hold for a bit because I thought if he came over at this point it would create more than a bit of a media circus.

David Plouffe, campaign manager: Senator [Obama] was preparing to leave his house to go to Hyde Park, so we said ‘Let’s pause.’ And then a few minutes later it was now [leader of the Nation of Islam Louis] Farrakhan showed up, so it was kind of like this bizarre bar scene from Star Wars with all these controversial figures.

Arun Chaudhary: I remember sitting there, waiting for the senator to vote, and we were just sort of wondering if reporters were going to notice or if they were paying attention. We certainly weren’t going to point it out to them.

Left, the Obamas cast their votes on the morning of November 4, 2008. Right, Senator Obama holds up his ballot receipt. | AP Photos





III. The Last Campaign Stop

Arun Chaudhary: [Obama] voted, and then we had to jump on the plane, so we get in the motorcade and go to Midway.

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser: My daughter had flown in from law school. And together we traveled with the president on the one stop he made that day to Indianapolis, where he visited a group of folks working in a campaign office and encouraged them to not take a single vote for granted.

A volunteer takes a photo of Senator Obama as he participates in a phone bank on Election Day. | AP Photo

David Katz, campaign photographer: A lot of the volunteers paused to take photos of him as he was making calls, and he’d say, “Come on, guys. Get back to work. We’ve got a lot of work to do today.” But you know, this was before the selfie phase, so it’s actually just people taking pictures of him on flip phones.

Arun Chaudhary: And then it sort of dawned on everyone, as we were getting on the plane to come back to Chicago, that this was the last trip on the plane.

Valerie Jarrett: I remember my daughter joking with us on the plane on the way back. And she said, “Well, this isn’t so hard.” And [Obama] said, “Laura, we used to do five of those stops in one day. So you’re just getting a tiny taste of what our last couple of years has been like.” But he was in a great mood.

Robert Gibbs: I remember how relaxed he was for really the entire day.

Top, Senator Obama exits the plane in Indiana for his last campaign stop of the election. Bottom, Senator Obama (right) laughs after a joke told by Arun Chaudhary (left). | Top: AP Photo, Bottom: Obama for America

Arun Chaudhary: There’s a very funny picture I remember of me and Gibbs and Obama. Obama is laughing really, really hard, and it’s because actually I had just made the crack that everyone looks like the world’s worst soccer team, pretty much, by this point in the campaign—like they’re all lined up around him, you know?





IV. The “Negative Flake Rate”

David Axelrod: I think I must have—although I can’t swear to it—I must have gone to lunch at my favorite hangout here at Manny’s, the deli, which I tend to do on election days. It’s a good place to clog your arteries and clear your mind. Any campaign warrior will tell you that you turn into campaign worriers on Election Day, because there’s nothing left you can do. Even though we were very confident of the results, until it happens, you worry.

David Plouffe: I was talking with [Senator Obama] throughout the day—what we were seeing in terms of early turnout reports. I doubt I talked to him about exit polls, because he generally didn’t care about that sort of thing.

David Axelrod: [Obama] would call periodically to check in and see what I had heard.

Anita Dunn, senior adviser: There was a sense of almost carnival on Michigan Avenue and in downtown Chicago. You had a huge number of people who had come to town, clearly, for the election. And people were smiling at each other and greeting each other in a way that you just don’t get in a big city usually. It felt like a festival. So I walked downtown a little. And people were literally in their shirtsleeves in Chicago at the beginning of November. It was midday, and Michigan Avenue was packed. There were street vendors selling Obama souvenirs.

Jon Favreau, director of speechwriting: I was putting finishing touches on a victory speech. I think after I made a few edits, the speech was with Obama, but he hadn’t made any edits yet. So I started waiting. There’s nothing to do on Election Day. Just sort of sitting around.

Anita Dunn: Well, what you do on a day like this is really simple—every 15 minutes asking Jon Carson, “What do you hear from this state? What’s the turnout like in this state? How are you feeling about this? What are you hearing?” and basically driving the people in the war room crazy. There are the people who actually are getting tangible, real results, and then the rest of us are just driving them crazy.

Jon Carson: The technical term we like to use in the political world is we had a negative flake rate. Usually you have a bunch of volunteers scheduled to come and a certain percentage of them flake off. Well we had a negative flake rate. People were showing up and they were bringing extra friends with them.



Looking at exit polls is like hooking up with your ex-girlfriend. You know before you do it that you shouldn’t. You do it anyway because you can’t resist. In the short term, you’re gratified, and then it quickly wears off, and you’re ashamed of yourself for the rest of the day.”

Marty Nesbitt, campaign treasurer and close friend: I remember [Obama] being amazingly cool and relaxed in spite of, you know, the anxiety that I felt in the campaign, and maybe that was partly because the stress of a long and grueling campaign had come to an end even though we didn’t know the outcome.

Tommy Vietor: I think we probably walked to get coffee a dozen times.

Jon Favreau: It was like just anxiety the entire time, just waiting. You know, waiting for exit polls, waiting for results. Because, you know, your brain tells you and your gut tells you we’re going to win this thing, but there’s this part of you that worries: “Maybe we were wrong. Maybe the polls were all wrong. Maybe the right people didn’t turn out.”

Tommy Vietor: A colleague made the funniest joke I heard that day: “Looking at exit polls is like hooking up with your ex-girlfriend. You know before you do it that you shouldn’t. You do it anyway because you can’t resist. In the short term, you’re gratified, and then it quickly wears off, and you’re ashamed of yourself for the rest of the day.” I think that’s how everybody who looked at exit polls felt, because they’re terrible. They’re so often wrong.





V. “Do Not Hurt the Future President Today”

Reggie Love: [Obama] played his ritual Election Day basketball game. It was probably one of the bigger games. We had multiple teams and played kind of like round-robin style.

Marty Nesbitt: And then I remember having a great time playing basketball with some friends and some younger guys, and I remember that being competitive, and I remember him focusing in on that and really putting the election out of mind. I mean I think Craig was there and Arne Duncan and Reggie Love and John Rogers. Chris Duhon who was a good friend of Reggie Love from their days at Duke who was an NBA player. I remember some of our sons playing in the game.

David Katz: I do remember Craig Robinson, Obama’s brother-in-law, saying, “Whatever you guys do, do not hurt the future president today.” It was still an aggressive game, but I think people were a little bit careful about how aggressive they were.

Marty Nesbitt: As complicated as life had gotten for him and as grueling as the campaign trail had been, when we got on the court it was the same as it has always been. Fun and competitive and spirited, and a reminder that everything didn’t have to change.





VI. With the Family

Valerie Jarrett: I remember [Michelle Obama] being very sensitive to her daughters and making sure that they were well attended to and didn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Kristen Jarvis, personal assistant to Michelle Obama: I think the first lady and I, we went separately from the president. I’m sure he was busy making those last minute efforts to get people out to vote, so we were back at the house, and by the time we got home and the girls got home, she went back into mom mode.

Melissa Winter: She is not prone to emotional swings.

Kristen Jarvis: At the hotel, everyone is on pins and needles. And then at their home, you go back into normalcy. And I think [Mrs. Obama], her job was to make sure that the girls were OK as well as everyone else, because we were all anxious and nervous. And then I think once the [senator] got home, I did my best to stay out of his way.

Melissa Winter: She has always carved out time to just be the four of them—or the five of them—and Election Day was no different.

Kristen Jarvis: They made sure that the family had some alone time and were able to take this whole day in as well, without the staff and the press and everyone surrounding them.





VII. Waiting for Ohio

Arun Chaudhary: Actually, I was feeling oddly and inexplicably pessimistic. I was like, “Something weird is going to happen in Florida and Ohio, and who knows how close this is going to be.”

Jon Carson: If you just stopped us and said “Do you think you’re going to win?” at any point near the end, we would have said “I think we’re going to win” but that was not the conversation we were having. We were saying, “What is every last extra thing we can throw at this?”

Robert Gibbs: I was in a hold with [Senator Obama] about an hour before the results came in, in a room in the hotel, and he was signing books. And I just remember having a conversation with him about the fact that, you know, there’s now only a mere matter of minutes before he begins to take on a set of roles and responsibilities that are enormous.

David Plouffe: I was more nervous the night before. Once we began to see real votes, we knew we were going to win, and so it was just a question of some of the closer states. Would we get Indiana? Would we get Missouri? What would the margin be in Florida?

Robert Gibbs: I remember also being in a hotel room during that last hour, and I’m talking to folks. And somebody said to me they’re nervous that they haven’t called any more states. And I said, “Well they can’t call any more.” They said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “You know we’ve won, right?”

Jon Favreau: I think right before they called Ohio, when it was looking good, Obama called and he said, “Oh, you know, I had some edits to the speech. I suppose we should do this now.” I said, “Yeah, it’s looking good.” He’s like, “Don’t congratulate me yet.” So he gave me—over the phone, some edits to the victory speech.





VIII. Tracking Down a 106-Year-Old

Jon Favreau: And we ended that speech with a story about a woman named Ann Nixon Cooper, who had waited in line for three hours to vote that day. And she’s 106 years old. We had seen this story on CNN, and so we decided to end the speech with her story and kind of all the progress she had seen over the course of her life.

Tommy Vietor: I think I said to Jon, “We should probably let her know. We should probably give her a call so she doesn’t have a heart attack when her name is mentioned in the middle of the speech.”

Jon Favreau: And so I turned to the research staff and I was like, “Can we figure out how to get a hold of this woman?” They get her number. She’s in Atlanta. I’m sitting there, and I tell her the whole story, I’m like, “I’m from the Obama campaign. We were very moved by your story and the president wants to include it in his speech tonight.” And so there’s this pause on the line and she says, “Will it be on television?” And I said, “Yes, it will be on television.” And then she was like, “Which channel will it be on?” And I said, “Oh, it’s going to be on all the channels.” And then she started to choke up on the phone, and so did I. And she said, “I’m so proud. I’m so happy, finally.” And right as she said that, they call Ohio.



I’m from the Obama campaign. We were very moved by your story and the president wants to include it in his speech tonight.”

And so there’s this pause on the line and she says, “Will it be on television?”

Tommy Vietor: I think we were stunned. We couldn’t believe that it happened so early.

Jon Favreau: The whole headquarters goes nuts. People are jumping up and down, screaming. And I hide under the desk so I can still hear Ann Nixon Cooper on the phone. And I talk to her for a few more seconds, and then hung up. And then everyone started cheering. I locked the speech in, sent it to the prompter, and then a bunch of us went on to Grant Park.

Reggie Love: I was asleep in my hotel room. I had gone to my room to take a shower before the watch event happened, and literally I passed out, like half-clothed on my bed while I was about to respond to an email. And then my phone rings while it’s on top of me and I wake up and look at the TV and see we’d won Pennsylvania and Ohio, and I was like “Oh man, I guess we’ve won this thing.” It was very anticlimactic for me.

Jon Carson: That was just this like almost very emotional moment where we finally let ourselves stop thinking about where’s the next phone call, the next precinct we could pound phone calls into, and sit back and say “Wow, we just won.”

David Plouffe: I think the most meaningful call was after Ohio was called to be able to tell [Obama] that that was in and that we thought we were going to win. But you know to be able say “Congratulations, Mr. President-Elect,” that was the culmination of a journey.

David Axelrod: I called Senator Obama and I reported this. He was, typically, unflappable and said, “Well, that sounds pretty encouraging.” And I told him, “I’m not going to say, ‘Let me be the first one to congratulate you, Mr. President,’” because that’s what my friend Bob Shrum did in 2004 to John Kerry, based on the exit polls, and it turned out not to be so. I didn’t want to jinx anything. But Obama was like, “Whatever.”

Arun Chaudhary (at Grant Park): When they called it for him, we had new Secret Service people just sort of mysteriously appear from the darkness. You know, our kind of like counter-assault kind of SWAT team, the ones who are dressed in black and have the grenades on their chest—who we hadn’t really had to that extent before—just like magically appeared because now he was the president-elect and had a different sort of level of security.





IX. “Mr. President Elect”

David Axelrod: Of course, the networks can’t call a race until California has voted. I remember Wolf Blitzer saying, “In ten seconds, we have an important announcement to make.” And he said, “We can now project that Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.”

David Plouffe: Well Axelrod and I were in the war room, with everyone else, and I think one of us said to the other, “Well we better go over and see him.” And I think on the walk it began to strike us that we weren’t going to go see Barack Obama, we were going to see the president-elect. It was a short walk, but it was a fairly weighty walk. And you know, when you got over there, even the Secret Service was acting a bit differently. A bunch of world leaders on hold to talk to him or leaving messages. That was different. So basically in the space of a five-minute walk, your whole orientation changed.

David Axelrod: And I still get verklempt when I think about that moment. We went over to see Senator Obama in his suite at the Hyatt Regency. The security had been heavy for a long time, but now it was even more so. There were people with their weapons drawn, or at least weapons at hand in the staircases—Secret Service people. We got led to his door, and we opened it up—or knocked on the door and it just opened up—and he was there with his family.

Valerie Jarrett: It was kind of like old home week in the suite, the people who had been closest to him and members of his and the first lady’s family.

David Katz: When it flashed “44th President of the United States, Barack Obama,” there was not screaming in the room. There was not cheers. There was this very quiet, calm, and sense of duty, almost, that came across their faces.

David Plouffe: Even though we knew that was going to happen, even though even Ohio had been called, still at 11 p.m. Eastern time, 10 o’clock central, that was an incredibly powerful moment. Because—you know—until they do that, it’s not real.

David Katz: And really, the president didn’t say anything for about 15, 20, 25 seconds. It was like it really just—he just needed to be very present, soaking in the magnitude of what had just happened, and the responsibility, I think, for what was to come.



This was probably the last set of moments in years where they would get to just be themselves.”

David Plouffe: There wasn’t champagne corks popping or yelling. First of all, we had still some states to come in, so we were mindful of that. Second we had other races out there. Third, he was dealing now with calls from world leaders, what the day tomorrow was going to look like, he had to begin the transition. That’s what's fascinating about it. You know, you become president, but it’s not like you have any time to soak it in, particularly given the economic issue. So it’s not as people I think would imagine it, which is you just won the presidency, the race barrier fell, it’s a historic moment and all that, but being there in the bubble, there was a sobriety about it. The first lady and I had a nice and very meaningful fist bump. Since we were accused of engaging in terrorist fist bumps, that was fun.

David Katz: At one point, Mrs. Robinson and the president were sitting on the sofa right in front of the TV together. I saw him reach out with his hand, put it on the sofa.



Senator Obama, left, with his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, right. | © David Katz



David Plouffe: She just sort of reached over and squeezed his hand, and you could tell the connection and the tenderness. They had been through, really, so much as a political family, you know from 2000—even starting in 1996—this had been their life, all the sacrifices that Mrs. Robinson had made to help take care of the girls, and the first lady. I think the president also knew how important Mrs. Robinson was in making this all work. Here’s a mother-in-law who grew up on the Southside of Chicago and she’s squeezing the hand of her son-in-law who’s just been elected the first black president.

Robert Gibbs: This was probably the last set of moments in years where they would get to just be themselves.

David Axelrod: What struck me and what I will always take away from it was I’d known Barack Obama since he was a law student. Almost instantaneously, there was something different about him. You could sense it, that he was getting his arms around the fact that the responsibly to lead was now his. It was a palpable thing.

Marty Nesbitt: It was so incremental, it was the furthest thing from like winning a lottery, where one day a second before the drawing you have no idea, you know you have a remote probability of winning, and then you win. This was like so incremental that the moment before to the moment after was in some ways anticlimactic, but remarkable. Because what he said to me was: “Well, I guess we got to get the kids and get in this motorcade and get down to Grant Park.”

Reggie Love: He just gave me a fist bump and said, “We did it. Now more work to do.”

Eugene Kang, Senator Obama’s “phone”: It was literally minutes after the networks had called it when Reggie and my phones started ringing. From what I remember, Senator McCain called right away to concede, and once he called to concede, President George W. Bush called right on the heels of that to offer his congratulations. Pretty quickly my main function of the evening kicked in, which was basically just getting phone calls from all the foreign leaders’ offices and there were some domestic figures in the mix as well.

Left, President-elect Obama shares a moment with Vice President-elect Joe Biden. Right, Robert Gibbs, David Plouffe, Senator Obama, and David Axelrod pose for a celebratory picture. | © David Katz

Reggie Love: It was just me and Eugene Kang. We had two cell phones that we used for the political calls, and they were ringing off the hook.

Eugene Kang: The first time I said those words—the president-elect—it raised the hairs on the back of my neck.





X. “Well … That Was a Big Day”

Valerie Jarrett: Well, the network called it after I had already left the suite with my daughter. We were in a trolley headed down to Grant Park and listening to the returns over the radio. And when the race was called for the president, the entire trolley shook with excitement as everybody burst out in screams of joy.

David Axelrod: To see people all over the world cheering for the outcome of an American election, and for America, was moving. And so was the ride to Grant Park. It was a little more than a mile, but you see this vast crowd cheering and waving flags.

David Plouffe: We had seen the scenes on TV and they looked incredible. So we get out of the motorcade and [Obama] went backstage with his family, and David and I went out right to the crowd. If I recall, we just stood there and didn’t say anything for a few minutes because the scene was so majestic. People were so happy, and there were flags flying, and there were buildings in the city lit up, and it was just this almost-hard-to-believe warm Chicago night in November.

Anita Dunn: And I think all of us realized we probably would never get to experience anything like that again in politics.

A crowd shot at Grant Park. | AP Photo

Tommy Vietor: I just remember it sort of like everyone was elated, but they were also exhausted, and just trying to mentally process what was going on. The atmosphere was more quiet than you’d think. It wasn’t like after game seven of the World Series—the people spraying champagne on each other.

Jon Carson: My wife, our five-month old son and I missed the bus that was taking most of the staff to Grant Park. At one point we actually were running down Michigan Avenue, trying to get to the gate where we could get in, and I had this really funny moment where there was some lovely security person who was standing there and the only badge that I had on was a badge that said “War Room.” Well imagine this poor security guy looking at this sweaty guy running around with a five-month-old kid in his arms saying “I really need to get into the speech” and the only credential I had was one that said “War Room,” which he did not have on his list. I don’t exactly remember how we worked it out but he called someone, and he let [us] in.

Valerie Jarrett: When I received word that the president-elect was on his way I can remember standing [backstage] wondering what to say at a moment like that. And as he approached me he walked up to me and he gave me a hug. And we looked at each other, and we literally didn’t say a word. And I’m really glad I didn’t say anything, because there wouldn’t have been any way for me to describe how I felt at that moment.

Jon Favreau: I remember right before the speech—my parents are there with my brother, my best friend from home—we were all there backstage, and got to see Obama right before he went on. He gave me a big hug, gave my parents a hug, and he said, “Well, he gets a little bit of rest, but then he has to start on the inaugural.”

President-elect Obama and family wave to the massive celebratory crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park. | Getty Images

Melissa Winter: For me, Grant Park was so visual. I remember FLOTUS’s beautiful Narciso Rodriguez dress. It was red and black, and then Sasha was in black and Malia was in red. And they were these tiny little girls back then—they were seven and ten. They were just adorable.

Josh Earnest, deputy communications director: [During the speech] was the first time that I started wrapping my head around the idea that I wasn’t just looking at a candidate for president or somebody that I hoped would be the next president of the United States. But that I was watching somebody who actually was the next president of the United States.

Michelle Obama and her staff pose for a photo. Left to right: Katie McCormick Lelyveld, Michelle Obama, Kristen Jarvis, Melissa Winter. | Courtesy of Katie McCormick Lelyveld

David Axelrod: His speech was very sobering. It was inspiring and yet it talked about the challenges which all of us knew were going to be immense. And so there was a feeling of, “What have we done to our friend here?”

Arun Chaudhary is the first person the president-elect hugs when he walks backstage after the speech, Jill Biden ducks to avoid blocking the photograph. | Courtesy of Jean-Michel Pichard

Kristen Jarvis: I remember hugging the president when they came off the stage. And I said, “Congrats Senator,” which is how I addressed him, and then I had to change it, to “Congrats Mr. President.”

Melissa Winter: The girls had to go home, so they were taken home ahead.

David Katz: And then, after that, [the Obamas] went back to a trailer that had been set up. They ended the evening with a little bit of a toast. I think the president made a martini, and they had a toast. It was just the two of them.

Arun Chaudhary: I remember, you know, at the very end of the night it was probably five or six of us, walking him back to his SUV to go home. But he was just like—something very Barack Obama—nonchalant, like, “Well, you know, that was a big day.” Got in the car and went home.





Epilogue

David Plouffe: David, Robert and Anita and I went back, if I recall, back to the Hyatt Hotel. And then we did the 60 Minutes interview, which was nice because we put a little beer in our coffee mugs to celebrate.

Robert Gibbs: You know going into that 60 Minutes interview, I could barely speak. And I don’t mean that emotionally, I mean I just literally had lost my voice. All of it just kind of catches up with you. I remember thinking there were things I wanted to say in the 60 Minutes interview, but I remember trying to say and I just remember beginning to feel the fatigue of all of this. And at some point thinking all I want to do is just go lie down. And I remember thinking they were pouring beer into those mugs. It’s the only time in my life I would rather have had hot tea.

Eugene Kang: I think the last of the calls trickled in around 2 in the morning, but it was a pretty steady stream until then. I couldn’t have anything to drink yet because I didn’t want to be drunk while talking to a foreign government.

Josh Earnest: So after the [Grant Park] event ended, all the roads were shut down. I remember walking a long, long way, mostly to get out of the crowd. We stopped along the way and had a couple of drinks and things. I don’t remember getting home until—it must have been four or five that night.

Jon Favreau: There was an after-party at a place called the Underground in Chicago. It was a bar, and we all sort of found our way there.

Arun Chaudhary: We’re celebrating the victory, and it turns out no one has uploaded the victory speech. I was like, “Oh my god, everyone who normally loads the videos is here.” And so I went back to my apartment, where there were lots of people sleeping over. And went into my bathroom and just worked on my laptop and uploaded the speech and posted it to YouTube, which was the final video that we ever posted at BarackObama.com.

David Plouffe: I had a 6 a.m. flight, so I headed back to my temporary apartment, packed my bags, and headed to O’Hare. I was trying to board with a main suitcase and two small bags and they said I couldn’t go through, so I threw one of my bags away because I needed to make that flight because my wife was due [to give birth]. And I tried to buy a newspaper at O’Hare just to you know have with me, and I couldn’t find one. So I went empty handed onto the flight. And I’m sure I crashed because I hadn’t slept at all that night, but then I was rocked back to reality. I went to go pick up my son from pre-school and get prepared for a new addition. For me it was a helpful reentering into the world.

(Note: All titles are presented as people were on November 4, 2008. Interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.)