White House sources say there is increased talk that senior
President Barack Obama adviser David Axelrod will
exit his post after the mid-term elections, and be replaced by his
campaign colleague and business partner David
Plouffe.
Plouffe has been holding down the fort at the two’s firm,
AKPD Message and Media, and the thinking inside the White House is
that Axelrod both needs a break and to begin focusing on 2012
re-election planning.
Meanwhile, Obama, say White House insiders, would like to
see if Plouffe’s presence can “shake things up” with a staff that
is said to be demoralized. “I remember what it was it like in the
last days of Jimmy Carter,” says a longtime
Democrat operative. “On certain days, this team rivals that
feeling. These kids have no context for what they are going
through.”
Plouffe was Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, but chose to
stay in the private sector instead of taking a senior White House
position. After the special-election victory of Sen. Scott
Brown in Massachusetts, Plouffe upped his role as an
outside senior adviser to the President.
Plouffe did stay involved politically with Obama, but did
so by working with Organizing for America, the political grassroots
organization that evolved from the Obama presidential campaign. But
OFA has failed to live up to the expectations the White House and
the Democrat National Committee set for the group 20 months
ago.”
