Obama 2012 Campaign Names National Press Secretary

WASHINGTON -- One day after announcing his re-election bid, President Obama is staffing up his 2012 campaign, hiring one-time White House communications aide Ben LaBolt to serve as national press secretary.

LaBolt will work out of Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters and manage the press shop at least through the (likely anti-climatic) Democratic primary. Katie Hogan, another former White House communications aide, will join him as deputy press secretary.

A Chicago native, LaBolt has been a longtime fixture in the Obama orbit. He served as a press secretary to then-Senator Obama and was with the 2008 presidential campaign from its onset. While in the White House, he worked predominantly on the Justice Department portfolio though was often handed high-profile issues, such as the BP oil spill and the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees.

LaBolt left the White House to serve as communications director for ex-Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s winning Chicago mayoral campaign. But even when working for Emanuel, his job required regular dealings with the same White House press corps.

In choosing to take on the title of national press secretary, he joins a list of ex-Obama aides lining up to assist with the re-election campaign. Former Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina will be leading the effort as campaign manager. Former Senior Adviser David Axelrod will serve as the top communications official. Former Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton is setting up a consulting shop that will, according to press reports, spearhead outside group efforts to secure the president a second term. And former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was rumored to be pondering a similar role, but is reportedly in talks with Facebook to serve in a senior communications role.

Comments

[one tequila two tequila]

06:46 AM on 04/07/2011

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
...Groucho Marx
Did Grucho know alabama?

[tosc]

09:19 PM on 04/06/2011

I voted for Mr.Obama, am not democrat or GOP. I am so disillusioned with washington as a whole. They are elected officials, yet they carry themselves not as an employee, but rather the employer. Each individual works for US...the american taxpayer! We do not work for them, they work for us. These days they seem to be working against US. My optimism has evaporated, just like possible employment. ugh!

[kwoodberryesq]

08:02 PM on 04/06/2011

Could give less than a dayum about his reelection while the government is shutting down, what is he going to be President of?

[marijam]

05:12 PM on 04/06/2011

Won't vote for him again. He has totally betrayed us as Democrats. RE: recent Bloomberg article that says the following:
"In February, the president released his budget and, lo and behold, it proposes maintainin­g the Bush tax cuts for all except the rich not through 2013, as in the December deal, but indefinite­ly. In so doing, the president convenient­ly took the issue of tax increases off the next election’s table."

[osage1948]

01:59 PM on 04/06/2011

THE “PRAGMATIST”

Obama’s appeasements UNDERMINE/MARGINALIZE Democrats. He comes across as an accommodating co-dependent. When voters couldn’t see a CLEAR DISTINCTION between Democratic and Republican values/policies, they had nothing to rally FOR or fight AGAINST in the midterms.

Iraq/Afghanistan are no more stable/winnable than they were under Bush. Innocents CONTINUE to DIE for NOTHING. Taxpayers CONTINUE to have hundreds of billions and or trillions of dollars pi$$ed away. The price of oil/gasoline continues to skyrocket.

Obama didn’t keep his campaign promise to provide AFFORDABLE health care insurance. There is nothing in the health care bill that creates the "competition" necessary to drive health care insurance prices down. 50,000,000 Americans are uninsured. Don’t get cancer, don’t break a hip and don’t get pregnant!

Obama didn’t keep his campaign promises to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich, to implement environmental regulations to govern smog and toxic emissions from industrial boilers, to end off-shore/deep water oil drilling, to provide government transparency or to help homeowners keep their homes.

Obama has been HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL in perpetuating the abuses and corruptions of the military industrial complex, crap-shooting banks and stock brokers, usurious insurance companies, monopolistic oil companies, manipulative real estate mortgage companies and the OBSCENE bonuses their executives say they are ENTITLED to.

Had Obama been an IDEALIST, would he have FOUGHT HARDER to keep his campaign promises? Or would he still have cut deals with the devil and declared he “had no choice”?

[dmzrn]

01:43 PM on 04/06/2011

I hear he's calling on Al Sharpton for help. Wow. I wonder if Tawana Brawley will be on the bandwagon?

[Osapient1]

12:17 PM on 04/06/2011

The good news is, since Obama has announced, he will have to decidedly move to the right.

[MickleVonTickle]

11:39 AM on 04/06/2011

Obama 2012... like Obama 2008. "Change You Can Relieve In"

[Pansey]

11:00 AM on 04/06/2011

Okay, all of you belly-aching about the POTUS, get the facts on his achievements:

http://obamaachievements.org/list

I for one will vote to REELECT him.....won't you join me? Y'all have a nice day.

[nativemama]

11:31 AM on 04/06/2011

No time to click on what he has done. I know what that is and I know what he has NOT done. I know all that. AND like you will vote for him. All those things left for the possible 6 yrs to come are things I have my fingers figuratively crossed for. Things that he would do/done and McCain would not have touched. Nor would another Republican do....not with them having a hard time hiding how much they would like to be the dictators of this country. Problem is that a number of Americans prefer to be dictatored-to and are not even aware of. How can a woman vote for for someone who wants to tell her what to do with the likely inhabitants of her uterus.

A third party would be dandy, but it is not here as yet. It would get everyone thinking harder about how to help this country of ours.
Fanned by the way Pansey.

[kahla]

12:40 PM on 04/06/2011

Gonna vote for him, reluctantly. hopefully he bolts a little more left after winning a second term:) yeah i am part of the sanctimonious professional left. I hope he realizes that no one in the financial industry has had his back. but maybe i am wrong.

[boyoboy]

12:12 AM on 04/07/2011

IMO, if you can only think of one reason to vote for Obama, it's to ensure we don't have another Republican on the SCOTUS.  There is a fair chance that there will be another vacancy in the next few/several years.  That's enough for me.

[ChubsyUbsy]

08:00 AM on 04/06/2011

"The combination of Afghanistan and Libya could bring a bitter end to the romance between Democratic liberals and Obama," Steve Chapman writes in Reasonmagazine.

"Many of them were already disappointed with him for extending the Bush tax cuts, bailing out Wall Street, omitting a public option from the healthcare overhaul, offering to freeze domestic discretionary spending, and generally declining to go after Republicans hammer and tong."

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/05-9

[Stephen Stafford]

09:29 AM on 04/06/2011

The romance seems less intense in any marriage from time to time. The Democrats and Obama are married. I mean, he is not expected to do a Lieberman and just run off with the next sailor he takes up with in Congress. This is a happy coupling, although, some family members would like to see some chit. That crew gets to talk to the hand.

This murmuring and complaining, like Hebrews on the wilderness journey, has a real world gauge as to its intensity and authenticity. Should any person in the Democratic Party decide that his or her own high horse is important enough - should anybody feel that they can do it better - should anyone be prepared to put their money where their mouth is - they can do like Barack Hussein Obama did. He prepared his plan, filled out the papers, told people what he was interested in, and made that run.

Today, not a soul other than he is running for the Democratic nomination. That writer you cite is akin to the town gossip. This marriage is solid.

[Dimplezzz2002]

07:39 AM on 04/06/2011

OK. Where is David Plouffe?

[lqw]

08:39 AM on 04/06/2011

He is the White House senior adviser.

[bocoe]

04:24 AM on 04/06/2011

Does President Obama have any African Americans in any high ranking posts in his administration? If he has I have not seen or heard of them. I know he fired one or two during his first year. I am just wondering...

[Bluepagan]

04:42 AM on 04/06/2011

Eric Holder, Susan Rice, Lisa Jackson.......

[mistlesuede]

05:22 PM on 04/06/2011

Thank you.

[Stephen Stafford]

05:31 AM on 04/06/2011

With so many doing the orange thing with their skin, you may have been confused when you saw them, not they are orange. Several of the African-Americans in the Administration are the ever popular "biscuit beige" in coloring.

[bocoe]

03:00 AM on 04/07/2011

Thank you, I see so few of them...All his new appointees are of another persuasion...

[twin1616]

04:11 AM on 04/06/2011

It's hard to get a job done when you have Congress working against you, the House and the Senate. Obama did what he could and I don't think that he "caved in". It was compromise, pure and simple. We all knew that the road back to prosperity would not easy. What some of want is a quick fix for this mess that the likes of the Bushes made. There is no quick fix. It took more than two years to get us in this situation and it will take more than two years to get us out. If you want more Robin Hood, taking from the poor and give to the rich, then by all means, vote Republican because if they are successful, there will be a lot more unemployment than we have now.

[dkinton49]

03:14 AM on 04/06/2011

He has told/promised Americans many things and then done the opposite. Close Gitmo within a year / now will try terrorist there now. Bush can't send troops per the Constitution / he starts fight in Libya and does not seek Congressional approval. Patriot Act is unconstitutional / he renews it and continues the wire tapping, etc. I will be transparent / most secretive president since Nixon. The list goes on and on and yet people think he is a good president. It is hard for me to believe that his party even wants him!

[nativemama]

11:40 AM on 04/06/2011

He IS a good President trying to be better. He thought he was going to work with sane and smart people in Congress. My question would be why is he signing on for another 4 yrs with these people.
You can look at things done or look at things not yet done or look at both. Freedom is why some of us are in this country.
Vote your pleasure.

[Bon1042]

01:39 AM on 04/06/2011

The President did something today he's done before, try to make his frustrated liberal (progressive) supports feel like they're the problem not what he's done (not done) the last 2 yrs. He said, "I'm fired up.... I don't know about anyone else." That to me is really superficial, obvious and manipulative.... and really disappoints me and makes me angry.

O'Donnell had Glen Greenwald on tonight in a good discussion comparing the so-called "extreme" base (I disagree with that claim) of his party with the extreme right. He explained that the tea partyers (who are wrong and extreme) hold repubs accountable, but that the left doesn't and the Party knows that. Once past the primaries, then the Party KNOWS that the progressives have nowhere else to go.

[Stephen Stafford]

05:34 AM on 04/06/2011

Those progressives have made their voices heard. One of the things some have said loud and clear is that they are upset and are shopping for someone else. Winning way to receive favorable consideration for your point of view. With friends like that, who needs TeaBaggers?

[Prib2009]

11:57 PM on 04/06/2011

Sounds like you're pretty thinned skin. What he said to me sounded like he is ready to get the campaign going, though he knows a lot of democrats aren't happy with him. Would you rather he have said, "I'm fired up and I know that all the democrats are with me". That would have been phoney because he knows what's going on. He knows it's not going to be like 2008. I think lots of times we forget that the president isn't just the head of the democratic party, he's the president of the whole country, whether they like him or not. Compromises have to be made and I would encourage you to try to come up with a past president who didn't have to make them. Actually I get really disappointed and it makes me angry when the progressives have the idea that they run the democratic party. There are several things I don't agree with progressives about. Hey, so what.