Obama Plans White House Shakeup
Politico reports:
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.
Obama’s advisers, a tight-lipped and fiercely loyal group, have expressed increasing impatience with the pace of the reorganization, not so much out of fear for their jobs but out of the uncertainty of knowing precisely who is in charge of what.
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