This is pretty fascinating minutaie and shop talk from Chicago HQ. E.g.:
HALPERIN: So, are you any less confident of winning than you were two weeks ago?
OBAMA ADVISER 2: I think we are where we thought we would be. This election was always going to tighten up. To the point made earlier, we knew this was going to be a very close election.
HALPERIN: But are you more or less confident than you were two weeks ago or exactly the same?
OBAMA ADVISER 2: Look, I think we are going to do what we have to do to get to 270. That’s exactly what I think, two weeks ago.
OBAMA ADVISER 1: We’re as confident as we were.
OBAMA ADVISER 3: I don’t think anybody here was ever overconfident. We thought this would be very hard. It’s been very close for a year-and-a-half, you know?
OBAMA ADVISER 1: We’re confident. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be tight. But, I think with that, we have more routes to win than he does.
HALPERIN: What is your message to, as David Plouffe would say, the bedwetters in the Democratic Party, who are all concerned about the debate and what it’s done to the public polling? What would you say to them?
OBAMA ADVISER 1: We weren’t geniuses last week and we’re not stupid this week. It’s going to be a tight race. We’ve always said that.
OBAMA ADVISER 2: And in the battleground states we continue to have more pathways than they do to 270 electoral votes. And we just got to close.
Relatedly, funny.
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