David Plouffe on the New Hampshire Primary

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe did an extensive interview with Portfolio magazine. Here's what he said about the New Hampshire primary:

L.G.: Did the loss in New Hampshire to Hillary have the effect of energizing the campaign?

D.P.: Well it did. It was a blow obviously. I think it was a real test of our campaign and our candidate. I think at the end of the day, voters want to see their next president struggle a little bit through this process, and if we would've won New Hampshire, we would've been like a comet streaking across the sky. I think they wanted to see Obama have to fight for it, struggle for it, and I think in many ways, we were better off for having lost New Hampshire. It's harder to see it in that moment—but it gave him a little more texture, and voters could say, okay, how do you respond to adversity, a tough situation? I think at that moment, the night of January 8, most political observers in the press thought Hillary Clinton was going to be the nominee, and that we were kind of a one-trick pony. We won Iowa, that was a nice political sideshow, and now order had been restored. But, yeah, I'm really proud how we fought back from that and were able to win the nomination.