Behind the Scenes Look at Campaigns

Commentary and insight on all things politics

Keepin’ It 1600 is apart of The Ringer which is a media company that also produces podcast. It consists of four regular hosts Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Tommy Vietor and Jon Lovett. These four men all worked together for President Obama.

Favreau and Lovett were both speech writers for the President, Vietor was with Obama since he was a Senator and Pfeiffer was the Chief Communications Officer. All of these guys played a key role in both Obama’s staff and campaigns. Their roles allowed the unique access to the President.

The podcast is devoted to all things politics, so a majority of their content has been focusing on the election. Judging by their former boss it’s safe to say that the group is very anti-Trump. They usually begin the show by blasting a recent Donald Trump gaff or discussing the week’s latest scandal.

What makes the podcast extremely engaging is that they go behind the scenes of Obama’s campaign for President. All four of them were with Obama in 2008 but have since moved on to new positions. They often compare what Obama’s strategies were 2008 and 2012 and how affective they would or wouldn’t be against Trump in 2016.

Similarly to Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, a lot of their conversation revolves around campaigns and strategy. There is an unbelievable amount of work that goes into a campaign, and we — the viewiers — only see a tiny amount.

A lot of the guys have experience in debate prep, opposition research and the day-to-day operations of a campaign since they have worked on many of them.

I love to know the behind the scenes look at how things work. My strong interest in how things works is satisfied in a particular episode when someone who was apart of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign is a co-host with the guys. The group talks very candidly about their opposing teams. They discuss what it was like to run against Clinton in 2008 and they compare it to her performance in 2016.

Not only it is a great podcast to keep you up-to-date with the election, it also has amazing behind the scenes.

Check out Keepin’ It 1600 and come back next week for another podcast. Last weeks podcast.