Campaign Shakeup? Obama Brings In New Consigliere

When I interviewed her in June, Valerie Jarrett, who will join Barack Obama's campaign as an part-time senior adviser, told me that, by the late fall, she would be, more or less, working on her best friend's behalf on a day-to-day basis.

Jarrett, a former deputy chief of staff to Chicago mayor Richard Daley, has known the Obama family for more than a decade. She runs Habitat LLC, a Chicago real estate company, and may one day run for mayor. A lifelong Chicagoan, she will be the campaign's outsider-in-chief, complementing the bevy of seasoned political insiders who now run Obama's campaign.

Obama advisers insisted that Jarrett's expanded role should not be read as a sign that Obama has lost confidence in campaign director David Plouffe.

But it's also true that Obama and his wife Michelle decided to bring Jarrett inside the campaign a little earlier than some in Obama's world had anticipated. The Obamas were responding to suggestions from friends outside the campaign who thought the campaign could use a firmer managerial hand.

Read more on Marc Ambinder