The Hard Charger at Obama’s Side Has His Hands Full
By PETER BAKER, NYT
WASHINGTON — Denis McDonough was pacing the path on the South Lawn of the White House one day this fall, ruminating on the challenges of a second term for his boss, President Obama. Mr. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, likes to stroll outside from time to time. It helps clear his head when he has a lot on his mind.
On this particular day, he was just hours away from a government shutdown that would test his president’s resolve and a day away from the debut of a new health care program that would test his president’s legacy. “I’m a keep-score guy; I always have been,” Mr. McDonough said in an interview as he circumnavigated the lawn. “So I’m good with the idea that there are scores being kept.”
The scores are now rolling in, and his team is down in the second half. Although the government shutdown proved a political victory as the White House stared down Republicans in Congress, the botched health care rollout erased the momentum and plunged Mr. Obama’s public standing to the lowest of his tenure. Last weekend’s six-month nuclear deal with Iran returned Mr. Obama to a position of leading rather than reacting, but it still drew fire from various directions.
At the center of these challenges is Mr. McDonough, the ramrod-straight scorekeeper from Minnesota with the close-cropped, prematurely graying hair and the bearing of a military man, even though he never served. A fanatically fit, workaholic hard charger who sometimes left bruised feelings across the administration in Mr. Obama’s first term, Mr. McDonough, 43, has become a much-praised right-hand man in Mr. Obama’s troubled second term.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — Denis McDonough was pacing the path on the South Lawn of the White House one day this fall, ruminating on the challenges of a second term for his boss, President Obama. Mr. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, likes to stroll outside from time to time. It helps clear his head when he has a lot on his mind.
On this particular day, he was just hours away from a government shutdown that would test his president’s resolve and a day away from the debut of a new health care program that would test his president’s legacy. “I’m a keep-score guy; I always have been,” Mr. McDonough said in an interview as he circumnavigated the lawn. “So I’m good with the idea that there are scores being kept.”
The scores are now rolling in, and his team is down in the second half. Although the government shutdown proved a political victory as the White House stared down Republicans in Congress, the botched health care rollout erased the momentum and plunged Mr. Obama’s public standing to the lowest of his tenure. Last weekend’s six-month nuclear deal with Iran returned Mr. Obama to a position of leading rather than reacting, but it still drew fire from various directions.
At the center of these challenges is Mr. McDonough, the ramrod-straight scorekeeper from Minnesota with the close-cropped, prematurely graying hair and the bearing of a military man, even though he never served. A fanatically fit, workaholic hard charger who sometimes left bruised feelings across the administration in Mr. Obama’s first term, Mr. McDonough, 43, has become a much-praised right-hand man in Mr. Obama’s troubled second term.
(More here.)
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