Obama Campaign Picks Chicago HQ

The New York Times reports:

President Obama’s aides have settled on the location of a campaign headquarters in downtown Chicago, with his re-election effort poised to open early next month by raising money and building a political organization for the 2012 presidential race.

While the president remains in Washington, his re-election team will be located more than 700 miles away on an upper floor of One Prudential Plaza, which sits a few blocks from where Mr. Obama delivered his 2008 victory speech on election night in Grant Park.

The campaign office, which officials confirmed will be located at 130 East Randolph Street in Chicago, has views of Lake Michigan and is also near the site of Mr. Obama’s first presidential campaign office. He will become the first president in recent memory to run his re-election bid from outside Washington, a strategy that his advisers believe will help build a stronger connection with grassroots supporters.

Jim Messina, who stepped down as deputy White House chief of staff, will be the campaign manager for the re-election effort. He will be joined in Chicago by two deputy campaign mangers: Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, a former executive director of the Democratic National Committee, and Julianna Smoot, a former White House social secretary, who led Mr. Obama’s fundraising efforts in 2008.

David Plouffe, who ran the first presidential race for Mr. Obama, is now working in the White House as a senior adviser to the president. He said earlier this year that putting the re-election headquarters in Chicago was an important step in rebuilding the campaign operation that helped elect Mr. Obama.