david axel rod, the senior strategist, his campaign manager and otherors. and they knock on the door, david says, we've come up short. it looks like we're not going to make it. and they're all looking to see how he is going to respond. and they were surprised themselves. now, these guys were not exactly short of respect and adulation for their candidate. but they were surprised. his reaction was, what happened? what do you think happened? so they go through it and they say, well, there was a massive flip roonched. the undecided voters went for her. he said, well, let's pretty much give the same speech. obviously we need to tweak it. but this was the test. and that became the message as he spoke to donors and key supporters. the initial reaction was, it's not supposed to be easy. people want to see us being tested. and i think that moment gave his inner circle and by extension his campaign, head quarters and the millions of people supporting them a lot of confidence that he could deal with a failure. because i do think you learn more from failure than succes