Obama Campaign Chief Tapped to Help Dems
David Plouffe, who led President Obama's winning campaign for the White House, will play a larger role in advising the president as reeling Democrats try to rally in this important election year.
The White House is downplaying the importance of Plouffe's return, reports CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier. A White House official told Dozier Plouffe's been working with the White House for a while.
"He is a brilliant thinker," the official told Dozier. "We'd be silly not to tap into his expertise."
A White House official told CBS News Correspondent Mark Knoller that Plouffe will serve as an "outside adviser" to the president which is "a role he's had informally" for some time. Plouffe will not be on the government's payroll, the official told Knoller.
Plouffe's primary job on behalf of the White House will be to devise, coordinate and analyze strategies for the House, Senate and governor's races in November, according to an administration official.
As one of Mr. Obama's most trusted advisers, Plouffe clearly will have a larger imprint, operating through the Democratic National Committee and Organizing for America, Mr. Obama's political organization.
The timing is significant because Democrats, just one year after Mr. Obama came into office, are the ones on the defensive now.
The upset victory by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts in claiming the seat long held by Democrat Edward Kennedy embodied a national sense of frustration in the economy and Washington's ability to fix it. Mr. Obama has bemoaned a public sense of detachment from what he's been trying to accomplish, and now Senate Democrats have lost the 60-vote bloc they need to overcome Republican opposition to Mr. Obama's health care plan.
So re-emerging is Plouffe. The administration official said Plouffe always was going to play a larger role at some point after finishing his campaign book, but a change in the political environment accelerated the timetable.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decision-making, said no one at the White House was in line to be demoted because of Plouffe's arrival.
Mr. Obama asked Plouffe to get more involved. Even before the polls closed in the special election to succeed Kennedy, who died in August, the president called Plouffe to the White House to talk.
The next day, Plouffe said that Brown's victory was not a repudiation of Mr. Obama's agenda, as Republican leaders suggested. He expressed some outspoken frustration, though, about the effort by Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, saying "even a mediocre campaign in Massachusetts probably would have won."
Plouffe has remained in regular touch with Mr. Obama and White House staff, and been an advocate for Mr. Obama's health care plans.
On the night Mr. Obama won election, the candidate hailed Plouffe as an unsung hero and promoted him as the leader of nothing less than the best campaign in U.S. history.
Most governor's seats, more than one-third of the Senate, all 435 House districts and state legislatures will be on the general election ballot this year. Democrats must protect far more seats than Republicans, and the political environment is not in their favor. The outcomes could significantly affect Mr. Obama's agenda.