Terrific move my VP Harris…
Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is bringing on a new echelon of senior advisers, most prominently David Plouffe, the former top political adviser to Barack Obama. The personnel move follows weeks of speculation — and lobbying from some Harris allies — to inject a fresh set of eyes into the campaign apparatus she inherited from President Joe Biden after he dropped his reelection bid last month Plouffe was Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and in 2012 served a similar role in Obama’s reelection from his perch as a White House senior adviser.
In his new role, Plouffe will be halting his weekly podcast, The Campaign Managers, co-hosted with former Trump campaign leader Kellyanne Conway. He will be permitted to keep existing private sector clients but he will end his advisory relationship with TikTok. Plouffe is the most high-profile addition in a slate of new operatives announced by the Harris campaign today as senior advisers, including policy adviser Brian Nelson, message guru Stephanie Cutter, organizing strategist Mitch Stewart, pollster Terrance Woodbury and communications adviser Jen Palmieri, who will work for first gentleman Doug Emhoff. Most had previous roles in Obama’s campaigns or administration. The campaign also confirmed POLITICO’s previous reporting that it expects GMMB, the media firm headed by former Obama admaker Jim Margolis, to be added to Harris’s paid media team.
There were conflicting accounts inside Harris’s operation about Plouffe’s role, with some aides playing down how broad his portfolio will be and others emphasizing this as a major position. “There will be several new roles/assignments,” according to a source familiar with the changes afoot. “He is the biggest one.” But a campaign official sought to play down the importance of the Plouffe hire, emphasizing that the widely respected operative, like the other new hires, will report to campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon. “He’s coming in for a very specific role,” the official said. “He’s not senior-advising the whole campaign. He’s senior advisor on 270 stuff.” Despite its outward success over the last two weeks, internally the Harris campaign is undergoing a bumpy period of transition as the candidate tries to balance maintaining continuity with the existing campaign operation while also placing her own trusted operatives in key roles The Washington Post first reported some of the new hires Friday.
(Credit Politico for this story)
While the Harris campaign is emphasizing continuity, the fate of Mike Donilon, the campaign’s chief strategist under Biden, was not announced and a campaign official did not respond to a request for comment about what Donilon’s new role would be. But Plouffe’s role is expected to ease concerns among some prominent Democrats about a potential lack of strategic direction at the top of Harris’ campaign. “There is no one you’d rather have in a foxhole with you in a battle like this,” said David Axelrod, Plouffe’s longtime partner during the Obama era. “He’s seasoned. He’s brilliant. He’s seen it all.” He noted that Dillon and Plouffe have a long history of working together. “Anytime you marry new personalities into an existing organization there’s a period of feeling out how roles are going to be defined,” he said. “I think he’s going to be like a consigliere to Jen and the campaign. She will figure out how to use him, but he’s not going to be anything but a team player.