"Democrats are winning more college-educated white voters and fewer non-college white voters, as pollster shorthand puts it, and Donald Trump supercharged this trend...."

"[T]he sorting that educational polarization is picking up... puts Democrats at a particular disadvantage in the Senate, as college-educated voters cluster in and around cities while non-college voters are heavily rural.... This is why Shor believes Trump was good for the Republican Party, despite its losing the popular vote in 2016, the House in 2018 and the Senate and the presidency in 2020. ... Shor has built an increasingly influential theory of what the Democrats must do to avoid congressional calamity.... To avoid it... they need to internalize that they are not like and do not understand the voters they need to win over.... Democrats should do a lot of polling to figure out which of their views are popular and which are not popular, and then they should talk about the popular stuff and shut up about the unpopular stuff.... [O]ne difference between 2016 and 2012 is that Romney was complicit in making economics the center of the campaign. Like Obama, he preferred to argue over tax policy and spending cuts and was plainly uncomfortable talking about immigration or race. He ran, self-consciously, as a former management consultant who would govern on behalf of America’s makers rather than its takers. Trump descended a golden escalator to call Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists. What was Clinton supposed to do?"

From "David Shor Is Telling Democrats What They Don’t Want to Hear" by Ezra Klein (NYT).

When Jon Huntsman said "to say that you can't secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment."

I'm motivated to dredge up that old quote by this front-page display at HuffPo:



The link goes to "Trump’s Russia Ambassador Is Having A Very Bad Week/Jon Huntsman has spent decades cultivating a reputation as a pragmatic Republican. Now some of his allies are urging him to ditch the Trump administration."

I'm not recommending that you read that article. I'm just showing you what's out there — the idea that a person with a great reputation must abandon Trump. The target of such a message is buttered up — what a great reputation you have — for the purpose of delivering the message that he's going to lose it if he doesn't quit his job. The reader isn't supposed to think about whether the author ever admired the target or would give a damn about him if he abandoned Trump. One suspects that if Huntsman quit at this point, the new message wouldn't be anything positive about Huntsman, but gloating about how no one wants to be associated with Trump and Trump is so despicable that he's nearly entirely isolated now and ought to resign or be impeached.

But I just want to show you what Jon Huntsman said in the GOP debate on September 12, 2011. This is something I ran across yesterday as I was surveying the use of the word "treason" in public discourse over the last 13 years (searching my own archive). The moderator, Wolf Blitzer, had already already asked Governor Rick Perry if he'd stand by something he'd said about the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. Perry — who'd said that it was "almost treacherous – or treasonous" to do quantitative easing in the run-up to the election — answered, "if you are allowing the Federal Reserve to be used for political purposes, that it would be almost treasonous." So the word "treason" was already in the discourse of the debate.

Blitzer then got the audience to boo by making Perry affirm that he has supported in-state college tuition for people in the country illegally. Blitzer then brought in Huntsman, reminding him that he'd supported "driving privileges to illegal immigrants." Huntsman answered:

Well, first of all, let me say for Rick to say that you can't secure the border I think is pretty much a treasonous comment.

Perry hadn't said we can't secure the border. He'd only said that building a wall across the southern border was "just not reality." Perry said the answer was more law enforcement personnel but Huntsman jumped at the opportunity to make Perry look as though he didn't believe the border could be secured, and then, later in the debate, when the question was how to treat people who'd made it across the border, Huntsman returned to the issue of Perry and border security and lobbed the word "treasonous."

Have you heard about Dolores?

"There’s a part of my personality that I don’t like anyone to see, a part of me that is my Daddy’s girl. I call her Dolores and she does not like it when she thinks people are not being straight with her. I don’t want anyone to see Dolores but I could feel her rising up inside me as Brooklyn continued to waffle about Tom."

Writes Donna Brazile in her book "Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House." (Tom, in case you're wondering, is someone Brazile wanted to hire at the DNC, where she was interim chair and outraged to be controlled by the Clinton campaign (i.e., "Brooklyn").)

"Dolores" was murderous:

One night when I went home I called Charlie Baker to warn him that I was struggling to keep Dolores contained. “Charlie, I’m about to kill Robby,” I told him. “And it ain’t going to be pretty.”...

"Dolores" had the biggest dick:

[Clinton campaign liaison Brandon Davis] looked at me sternly as if it was annoying him that I would try to take back control of the party as any chair would. Dolores was becoming furious. “You know, this does not feel like a negotiation to me,” I said. “This feels like power and control. Gentlemen, let’s just put our dicks out on the table and see who’s got the bigger one, because I know mine is bigger than all of yours.” The sound on the other end of the conference call was a rustle of confusion. “So what will it be, gentlemen? Because I am not waiting around anymore for permission. What do you say?” After some more deflecting and dissembling, their response was that they would have to get back to me. When the call was done, Brandon left the room, looking disgusted. This day was serious. This whole election was serious, and for a moment there I was concerned that I had taken it too far in the way I had confronted Brooklyn. I recovered from that quickly though. We could not lose this election to Donald Trump and I was not going to play nice or waste time. Dolores might be rude and feisty, but she usually got what she needed. Those boys in Brooklyn probably never wanted to speak to Dolores again.

By the way, I'm getting bored reading Brazile's book. The main thing is that — as she tells it now — she wanted the interim chair position to give her an independent role, making decisions and spending money for the Clinton campaign, and the campaign exercised control. Her predecessor Debbie Wasserman Schultz had — as Brazile tells it — known her place and laid back and enjoyed her perks.

I think Debbie understood the rules of the game. She would not cause anyone any trouble. Now that I was replacing Debbie, it appeared Brandon’s job had expanded to include making sure that I played that game, too. Brandon was the first one in the door on Sunday, and he took a seat on the brown leather sofa across from me. Here was a young man without a boundary facing a woman who has walls built up and barbed wire around them, too. He was the kind of guy who would argue with you about the color of a wall. I said that this pink was too bright for my tastes, and he corrected me saying this was not a bright pink, it was a tropical pink.

What kind of guy argues with a woman about the right name for a particular tone of pink? Is it a woman-with-the-biggest-dick move to make a guy talk about pinkness?

"The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative website funded by a major Republican donor, initially retained the firm that conducted opposition research on Donald J. Trump — including a salacious dossier..."

The NYT reports, based on testimony before the House Intelligence Committee today.

According to people briefed on the conversation, the website hired the firm, Fusion GPS, in October 2015 to unearth damaging information about several Republican presidential candidates, including Mr. Trump. But The Free Beacon told the firm to stop doing research on Mr. Trump in May 2016, as Mr. Trump was clinching the Republican nomination.

In April 2016, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee also retained Fusion GPS to research any possible connections between Mr. Trump, his businesses, his campaign team and Russia. Working for them, Fusion GPS retained a respected former British spy named Christopher Steele.

He went on to produce a series of memos that alleged a broad conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the 2016 election on behalf of Mr. Trump. The memos, which became known as the “Steele dossier,” also contained unsubstantiated accounts of encounters between Mr. Trump and Russian prostitutes, as well as real estate deals that were intended as bribes.

That sounds clear (if cagey): The dossier is traced to the Democrats.

The "major donor" is Paul Singer, who is (presumably) the name Trump was talking about yesterday when he said "I think I would know... but let's find out who it was... If I were to guess, I would have one name in mind."

"I’m not going to look foolish for you. I’m not going to gesture in some way that you’re going to capture that’s going to make me look foolish or awkward.”

“I’m not going to be portrayed this way by the left-wing media. I’m not going to let the left-wing media frame me in some way that is going to be damaging to me."

What Michele Bachmann said, as remembered/paraphrased by Chris Buck, the photographer of the 2011 Newsweek cover that came to be known as "Crazy Eyes."



Buck comments:

I was shocked, because one, it’s amazing for someone just to speak their mind so directly, but two, we had really just begun. And I was asking for something pretty standard, you know? Not to say that she has to do everything I say, but there are other ways to deflect or refigure something without directly accusing me and my client of trying to disparage her.

He was — as he tells it — asking her to "relax, and maybe even if you want to gesture a little bit, we can even talk so you can be more relaxed," so he could get something "more animated with more life."

The interview is from 2011, but it's only getting published now, the occasion being a new book of Buck's photographs, "Uneasy: Portraits 1986-2016." (Buck sent me a copy of the book, but I haven't got it yet.)

"Ann, can you link to a post by you where you were heavy critical of the President-elect when he was doing his whole Birther shtick?"

"Yeah, I didn't think so," snarks Once written, twice in the comments to "Mike Pence goes to see the musical 'Hamilton'...."

That "Yeah, I didn't think so" is such cheap humor. And using the search box, you could easily find this from April 7, 2011:

Let's talk about Trump.

He's second only to Mitt in a recent poll. But there's no way he can be the nominee. What's going on? Name recognition? An early-in-the-game spirit of fun? I don't know, but he's in it now enough that he'll be listened to and included in the debates, and he can say whatever he wants until the moment arrives when he throws his support over to some realistic candidate. Meanwhile, we've got him stirring up the old birther issue, going where candidates who must coddle their credibility dare not go.

"Notwithstanding [Election Day's] 'white working-class' wave, often linked to those voters’ purported latent racism and xenophobia..."

"... the net effect of Trump’s campaign was to make substantial progress with nonwhites relative to Romney’s performance in 2012."

Also: "Clinton Couldn’t Win Over White Women."

"Who's right?" — someone asked me when she saw the results of my "Who is Althouse voting for?" poll.

Here's yesterday's post with the poll, and here's how the poll results look right now:



The "Who's right?" question came over on Facebook — where I talk to a limited audience and keep the settings on private. I answered the question over there, so let me quote myself so you can read what I said:

I may not ever say. What's in it for me to say? I'm proud of myself for blogging so much without it being apparent (or without making a decision, as the case may be). Why should I spoil it with a clunky, boring announcement? You might say, these questions can't be answered without knowing what my answer would be.

And:

Note that the total of the 3 third party candidates is larger than the pro-Hillary number. By the way, I believe the reason Clinton is outpolling Trump here is that a lot of my blog readers loathe Hillary and are annoyed to think that I'll vote for her — despite all the negative blogging I've done — because I can't resist being part of the occasion of electing the first woman President — even though I've never said I'm into that and have often expressed dismay that the first woman President should be someone who leveraged her career on her husband.

"If you dedicate your existence to being likable... and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen..."

"... it suggests that you’ve despaired of being loved for who you really are. And if you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level, contempt for those people, because they’ve fallen for your shtick. Those people exist to make you feel good about yourself, but how good can your feeling be when it’s provided by people you don’t respect? You may find yourself becoming depressed, or alcoholic, or, if you’re Donald Trump, running for president (and then quitting)."

From "Pain Won't Kill You," a 2011 commencement address, delivered at Kenyon College, by Jonathan Franzen, which you can read in the essay collection, "Farther Away." [AND: Full text here.]

ADDED: Do you even get why Donald Trump was used as a joke in 2011? It was May 28, 2011. Here's an article from May 16, 2011: "Donald Trump bows out of 2012 US presidential election race/US mogul formally announces he will not seek the Republican nomination, claiming he is 'not ready to leave the private sector.'"

Few US political commentators took his campaign seriously and many suggested he was only in it for the publicity.

In a statement, he said: "After considerable deliberation and reflection, I have decided not to pursue the office of the presidency. This decision does not come easily or without regret, especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country."

Modesty is not a Trump characteristic and this is reflected in his statement. "I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and, ultimately, the general election."

He added: "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognise that running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."

"Buoyed by the support of enthusiastic workers in the city’s big casinos, Hillary Clinton defeated Senator Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses on Saturday..."

"... thwarting his momentum and proving to an anxious Democratic Party that she maintains strong support among minority voters that she can carry to a general election," the NYT reports.

At a caucus at the famed Caesar’s Palace, blackjack dealers, pit bosses, cooks and housekeepers excitedly declared their support for the former secretary of state. “She’ll change immigration. She’ll change the economy. She’ll change todo!” said Dora Gonzalez, 54, a casino porter at the Bellagio, using the Spanish word for everything.

“And she’s a mujer!” added her friend Elba Pinera, 51, and originally from Honduras, using the Spanish word for woman....

And Mrs. Clinton, who is typically a reserved presence on the trail, seemed to embrace the quirkiness of campaigning in Las Vegas... even receiving the endorsement of 500 sex workers, mostly from Carson City brothels, who formed the “Hookers 4 Hillary” group.

A mujer's gotta do what a mujer's gotta do.

Bernie takes flight.

Drudge's presentation right now:



How do you interpret that juxtaposition? I see Trump thumb-pointing over to Bernie and Bernie spreading his wings, ready to take flight.

Exactly 4 years ago, I was thinking and talking about Newt Gingrich the way, lately, I've been thinking and talking about Trump.

A reader sends a link to a post of mine from January 22, 2012 titled "Coming to terms with The Newt." My mental adjustment to presidential candidates is absurdly familiar:

Before going out on that dark night last night, I'd seen that [Newt Gingrich had] won the South Carolina primary. 

Oh! The schedule was a lot earlier then.

At intermission [at some classical music concert], I said to Meade: "I've come to terms with Newt." I didn't mean that I was prepared to vote for him. I still regard the idea of President Gingrich as bizarre. But I live in the moment. I embrace the now. It's fine the way things are. Newt has his role to play, and right now, I'm going to say it's a good one.

That sounds like something I'd say right now about Trump.

... [I]t's good that the Tea Party and other sorts of conservative factions contribute to the political mix in America. Newt — along with Santorum — has established that the Establishment can't dictate who the candidate will be. 

Trump, along with Cruz....

Whoever ultimately becomes the candidate — and I assume it will be Mitt — he won't achieve his place through the nods of insiders bypassing the people who have imperatives of their own. It's strange that Gingrich embodies their wants, but that's the way this strange campaign has evolved....

It's strange that Trump embodies anybody's wants but Trump's, but that's the way this strange campaign has evolved.

... Gingrich has achieved his position through the sheer force of putting ideas into words, words that people heard. There's something quite beautiful about that, quite American. And it's beautiful without the man being beautiful.... You'd think we'd be more influenced by the image of The Newt...



... but we're not. We're hearing the words, the speech, the ideas. I hear democracy maturing! Over The Newt! I think that's pretty cool.

Quite American... beautiful without the man being beautiful.... If I could just photoshop a Trumpion head of hair onto that little guy, that newt, I'd have this post done.

"Republican strategists have long theorized about the possibility of the brokered convention, which hasn't happened in decades..."

"... but the dinner meeting [of top Republican Party officials] appears to be the first active planning taken by the GOP to prepare for it," CNN reports.

A brokered convention occurs when no candidate gets enough of the delegates to secure the nomination on the first vote tally. After that, delegates can be given up to other candidates, shifting the balance.... 

[A] new Republican National Committee rule that requires any GOP nominee win a majority of delegates from eight different states....

It had "nothing, zero, nada to do with Trump except he may be one of the candidates standing at the end," said the source. "It was not aimed at anyone."

Sean Spicer, RNC chief strategist and communications director, downplayed the significance of the dinner on Friday. "It was a dinner where the subject was how the delegate selection process works.... At the end of that dinner, there were a lot of questions asked.... It's great cocktail conversation... This is really, to be honest, with you quite silly."

(Strange comma placement in that last sentence.)

Do you know "Who were the last two presidential nominees lacking a majority at the end of the first roll call at their party conventions?" The reason that question asks for two is that it happened in the same year. It was longer ago than 1976, but in 1976, Ronald Reagan got pretty close to getting a brokered convention. (Give up? It was 1952.)

[N]omination by way of a contested convention was a respectable strategy from the 1830s, when conventions became the standard way of nominating candidates, until at least the 1960s. Democratic front runners Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 and John Kennedy in 1960 knew that their support might dissipate unless they won quickly. Their chief rivals, Al Smith and Lyndon Johnson respectively, hoped that it would. In both cases effective floor managers kept wavering delegates in line. Kennedy won on the first ballot but not until the alphabetical roll call reached Wyoming; Roosevelt won on the fourth when the Democrats still required a two-thirds majority....

[C]onventions were, are, and probably should be about more than nominations. Senator Richard Russell, the genteel face of racial segregation, accumulated large numbers of delegates at the 1948 and 1952 Democratic conventions in order to demonstrate the power of the white South. Jesse Jackson used the same tactic on behalf of racial equality and a "rainbow coalition" in 1984 and 1988. Whether or not Senator Edward Kennedy actually thought he could shake loose Jimmy Carter's delegates at an "open convention" in 1980, he wanted to make a vivid case for liberalism....

No one can predict whether or not the Republicans will have a contested convention this year, either because Mitt Romney's more conservative rivals might have a chance in combination to deny him the nomination or because they want to make a vivid ideological statement... 

That was, obviously, written in 2012. The odd thing this year is that GOP insiders seem to be looking at a convention where the dominant candidate would be challenged by insurgents making a "vivid case" for... moderation.

"Is [Carly Fiorina] really, truly so filled with rage? Probably not."

"When she ran unsuccessfully against Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2010, she was a moderate, pro-business Republican. That erstwhile profile would get her nowhere in this year’s presidential race, however, when everyone is scrambling to get to the right of everyone else and 'moderate' is a dirty word. One has to wonder if the showy posture of ultraconservative anger isn’t the biggest lie of all."

Writes Eugene Robinson.

I wonder if Hillary Clinton is watching Fiorina's rise and trying to learn something about how a woman can present herself in an exciting, compelling way. Robinson, I suspect, would only like to say that it's those terrible Republicans who respond to anger, but Democrats are responding to Bernie Sanders and he always sounds and looks angry. (Take any video of him, pause it randomly and repeatedly, and marvel or giggle at how every freeze frame is another angry face.)

And on "Meet the Press" the other day, when asked whether Hillary Clinton is "in tune with the mood of the electorate," Andrea Mitchell said no, because "She's not angry enough." Mitchell seemed to think it would be too hard for Hillary to feed the hunger for rage: "[I]t's hard for her to be angry because then you've got, you know, Donald Trump saying, 'She's shrill,' which is a sexist word, let's face it. But she has to get around that. But the anger, the passion is all on people going on the attack, whether it's, you know, whether it's Donald Trump, whether it's Carly Fiorina, or whether it's Bernie Sanders."

If Carly can do it, why not Hillary? Carly undermines that pro-Hillary sexism argument, that if Hillary displays emotion, she'll be judged according to standards that are only imposed on women. There are reasons for a candidate to eschew the anger mode, but Carly makes it harder for Hillary to claim she must be flat and bland lest people see her as a screeching harridan.

"We can now name the winner of the GOP debate: Ben Carson."

Says Philip Bump, graphing the polls.

Mitt Romney steps up to the role of keeping Republicans from attacking Republicans.

From yesterday's "Meet the Press":

CHUCK TODD: There have been some reports that you and Sheldon Adelson, the big, Las Vegas casino mogul, that you want to avoid a repeat of the primary chaos you went through in 2012. What does that mean? What was the chaos of 2012 that you don't want to see repeated for the Republican field in 2016?

MITT ROMNEY: Well, I think that's a comment I'll make very broadly, which is I think it's harmful in a process if you have Republicans attacking Republicans. And so I think it's very effective if instead we can talk about the differences between our views to help people in the middle class and help the poor versus the views in our opposition, as opposed to going after one another. And I'm not saying I was perfect in that regard either. But going back to Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, that kinda makes a lot of sense for our party.

Embedded in Romney's answer is an assumption that Republicans did go too far attacking Republicans in the 2012 primaries and unwisely burdened the Romney campaign. When you think about that now, what do you remember? What hurt him? What stifling of vigorous debate would — in retrospect — have been a better idea? I have trouble calling to mind anything specific. I asked Meade, and he came right up with this:



By the way, Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" has its own Wikipedia page:

Does this mean Obama's immigration plan will only be carried out if the next President wants to do it?

I'm trying to delve into the true import of this NYT article titled "Immigration Overhaul May Be in Limbo Until Late in Obama’s Term." The headline seems to inject some optimism into the scenario. Let's look closely:

1. There's a preliminary injunction in place preventing Obama from going forward with his plan, and the Justice Department has chosen not to go to the Supreme Court now. So the litigation continues on the merits in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which will take some time. When it ends, whoever wins will seek Supreme Court review. That's going to take some time.

2.  How much time? The NYT says: "That legal battle may extend for a year or more, officials said, undermining any hope of putting the president’s plan into effect until right before the 2016 election." I take that to refer to the possibility that the Supreme Court (assuming it takes the case) would come out with a decision before it goes on its summer break, which would leave Obama with half a year to go forward with his plan.

3. Would Obama start up his program right on the eve of his successor's election? It's a political problem, but it's not just a political problem. Politically, it might help the Democratic candidate to have the program begun so that she (or he) can say you need me to continue it. Pressure could be put on the Republican to say whether he'd keep it going or not and what he'd do with the problem instead. Obama could choose whichever works better for the Democrat, when the time comes. At a late point in the campaign, he'll have the power to affect the factual context of the immigration issue.

4. But it's also a practical problem. It's a program that invites undocumented immigrants to "come out of the shadows." Who will want to do that in late 2016? If it won't work, because those who are eligible to come out lack confidence that the program will stay in place, then why do it? Well, the reasons discussed in point #3 might still hold. Begin the program for show. You've got a safe haven for people but the people are too afraid to use it. Look! Isn't that sad! Don't you want to vote for the candidate who will make it possible for people to use this wonderful plan Obama thought up? That's the political argument that could be built on the practical problem.

5. The political argument built on the practical problem only works if it turns out that voters in the swing states want the reform and approve of Presidents acting independently of Congress. But, as noted in point #3, Obama will make the decision close to the election, so he'll have up-to-date  information about how people feel — not only what they think about immigration but whether they're susceptible to the argument that it's important for Obama to end his presidency on a high note. His word is "HOPE." Wouldn't it be beautiful if he ended with this success that is the very essence of hope? Will that idea resonate in the summer and fall of 2016? He can decide when the time comes.

6. Points ##3, 4, and 5 all assume Obama will win in the Supreme Court. That's unlikely, I think. If he loses, however, he hands his party's candidate an excellent issue: those terrible conservatives on the  Supreme Court who are ruining everything.

How much can Romney help Rubio?

WaPo reports:

Sen. Marco Rubio has been cultivating a relationship with Mitt Romney and his intimates, landing some of the 2012 Republican nominee’s top advisers and donors and persistently courting others as he readies an expected 2016 presidential campaign.

In a crowded field of contenders, the imprimatur of Romney could help clear Rubio’s path into the top tier. Since Romney announced in January that he would not run for the White House again, he and Rubio have had at least two lengthy phone calls in which Romney encouraged and mentored the 43-year-old Florida senator about the political landscape, according to a Romney associate.

Rubio and Romney have built a warm and trusting rapport, in contrast to the frostiness that exists between Romney and the two current GOP front-runners, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. When Romney said in January that it was time to turn to the “next generation of Republican leaders,” it was widely interpreted as a swipe at Bush and a boost to a fresher face, such as Rubio.

What's the evidence of frostiness toward Walker?

"Lesley Gore, who sang 'It's My Party' and 'You Don't Own Me,' died..."

"... of lung cancer at age 68 today in New York City."

More links and details here, including:

The manically happy "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows" was used in an episode of The Simpsons, "Marge on the Lam" (season 5).

ADDED: Remember when Lesley Gore was Pussycat, one of Catwoman's minions?



AND: Here's a 2011 post of mine about songs about crying:

[In the early 1960s, t]here was a brightness and a happiness to the songs that dominated the top 40. Even the songs about crying. The biggest song about crying in 1963 was "It's My Party." Lesley Gore is gloriously triumphant in her claim of the right to cry.

And here's a 2012 post about the song "You Don't Own Me" that got touched off by the use of the song in a pro-Obama ad:

"Joe Biden is a decent guy, but man, that guy can just talk and talk... It's an incredible thing to see."

Obama once said to David Axelrod (according to David Axelrod).

Also... Obama was irked by Mitt Romney's 2012 concession phone call:

The president hung up and said Romney admitted he was surprised at his own loss, Axelrod wrote.

"'You really did a great job of getting the vote out in places like Cleveland and Milwaukee,' in other words, black people,'" Obama said, paraphrasing Romney. "That's what he thinks this was all about."