Obama plans 2011 staff makeoverBy CAROL E. LEE & GLENN THRUSH | 12/15/10 4:38 AM EST Updated: 12/15/10 6:02 AM EST
President Barack Obama has delayed the most significant staff shuffle of his presidency until after New Year’s — but the changes may be more sweeping than anticipated and could include the hiring of high-profile Democrats defeated in the midterms.
David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, who will become a senior adviser to the president as early as the first week of January, is perhaps the most significant addition to Obama’s staff. He is expected to take an expansive new role including running the embattled White House press and messaging operations, people with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.
White House staffers hope the organization-minded Plouffe — combined with the steadying hand of interim chief of staff Pete Rouse — will professionalize an improvisational and, at times, chaotic organizational chart centered on former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a domineering figure during the administration’s first two years.
Obama’s thinking on other specifics of his reconfigured West Wing — as well as a new campaign operation and Democratic National Committee structure — is largely unknown. But changes are expected across the administration, with familiar faces moving into new roles, both inside and outside the White House, and some unfamiliar ones joining the ranks.
“The president has talked to a bunch of different people throughout this process on how to do the reorganization,” one official said. “You’ll definitely see faces that are new.”
But the lame-duck legislative session has consumed almost all the time and energy of senior staffers, especially Rouse, who is now more likely to use the president’s Hawaiian vacation to put the finishing touches on a broader reorganization plan.
But several things are already clear. David Axelrod will depart as a senior White House adviser on Feb. 1, after Obama’s State of the Union address, to take a few weeks off before beginning to set up the president’s reelection campaign.
Jim Messina, one of Obama’s deputy chiefs of staff, will head for the exit shortly after Axelrod to help with the campaign, and Valerie Jarrett will stay as a senior White House adviser for as long as the president wants.
Beyond that, the restructuring of the Obama administration remains a mystery even to some of the president’s closest aides, which is making some in the West Wing nervous.
“It’s ‘Waiting for David,’” one aide joked about Plouffe, referring to Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.”
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46406.html