The Obama 15: A guide to the fifteen political operatives who run Obama's world

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_obama_15

Dylan Matthews | August 18, 2008



1. David Axelrod, media strategist

A Chicago political consultant, Axelrod first met Obama in 1992 when the candidate was running a voting registration drive there. Originally a Chicago Tribune political reporter, the 'Axe' switched to electoral politics in 1984, when he signed up for then-Rep. Paul Simon's successful Senate campaign. He then worked on Chicago mayor Harold Washington's 1987 reelection campaign, Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate race, and as the media guru for John Edwards' 2004 presidential run. After the Edwards campaign faltered, Axelrod focused his attention on Obama's Senate primary campaign and helped engineer his come-from-behind defeat of millionaire businessman Blair Hull. He masterminded Deval Patrick's successful 2006 run for governor in Massachusetts, and then rejoined Obama on his presidential bid.

In February 2007, Christopher Hayes traced Axelrod's path from Tribune reporter to Obama's right hand man in The Nation.

2. David Plouffe, campaign manager

Plouffe's career began with Senator Tom Harkin, specifically his 1990 Senate reelection campaign and 1992 presidential run. After spending the mid-1990s working on various congressional races, Plouffe joined then-House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's staff in 1997. After two years on the Hill, he was tapped to run the DCCC for the 2000 cycle. He rejoined Gephardt for his presidential bid in 2004 as a senior political adviser. When that campaign folded after the Iowa caucuses, Plouffe joined his friend Axelrod on Obama's Senate bid, and in early 2007 he was tapped to manage Obama's presidential campaign.

In May 2008, Noam Scheiber of The New Republic detailed the key organizational role Plouffe has played in the Obama campaign, particularly his focus on delegate-counting.

3. Pete Rouse, Senate chief of staff.

A longtime Hill staffer, Rouse served as chief of staff to former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle until 2004, when Daschle lost his reelection bid. Out of a job, Obama convinced him to move from working for the most powerful Democrat in the Senate to working for one of most junior. He has run Obama's Senate office since early 2005. Rouse has been key in formulating Obama's Senate strategy, urging him to fly below the radar and work on passing bipartisan legislation, like transparency reform with Tom Coburn, or nuclear nonproliferation with Dick Lugar.

In August 2007, the Washington Post's Perry Bacon detailed how Pete Rouse has engineered Obama's fast rise through Washington.

4. Cassandra Butts, domestic policy adviser

Butts, currently the senior vice president for domestic policy at the Center for American Progress, was, like Plouffe, a longtime Dick Gephardt aide. After seven years with him in the House, she signed onto his 2004 presidential bid as policy director. She was a close friend and classmate of Obama's during his time at Harvard Law School, and took a leave of absence from CAP to help Obama establish his Senate office. She's worked with the campaign both on domestic policy issues and on outreach to fellow Harvard Law alumni.

In March 2007, Anna Schneider-Mayerson of The New York Observer examined the role Butts, and other Harvard Law classmates of Obama, are playing in his campaign....

It's good to have a short bio on all these people as they may end up on the cabinet and running the White House.

Sometimes an actual fact or two does escape into the total vacuum that is American media....it is always astonishing and gratifying when it does, and I like to bring it to wider attention.