Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he’s stepping down to become an outside political adviser to President Barack Obama and help with his re-election campaign.
Gibbs, 39, who has worked with Obama since 2004, said today he intends to leave sometime next month. The choice of a successor hasn’t been made, he said.
The announcement marks the latest in a series of staff changes at the White House that began last July and has accelerated as Obama enters the second half of his term. While the president achieved major policy goals during his first two years --including an overhaul of the health-care system and new rules for Wall Street -- his agenda for the next two years will be constrained by a newly empowered Republican Party, which won control of the House and narrowed the Democratic majority in the Senate.
At the same time, Obama is preparing for a re-election campaign that will see some of his most prominent advisers and staff redeployed. In addition to Gibbs, senior adviser David Axelrod, the architect of Obama’s 2008 election, is set to leave the administration in the coming weeks and return to Chicago before rejoining Obama’s re-election effort. Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, will join the White House staff as early as next week as an adviser to the president.
Gibbs’s departure was reported earlier by the New York Times.
Adviser Turnover
The president also is preparing to announce his choice for director of the National Economic Council to replace Lawrence Summers, who left the post at the end of the year to return to Harvard University. Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, has emerged as the leading candidate. Obama may make the announcement by the end of the week.
Obama also may replace interim Chief of Staff Pete Rouse, who was given the job after Rahm Emanuel resigned to run for mayor of Chicago. The president is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and brother of the current Chicago mayor, to be chief of staff or another high- level administration post, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from President George W. Bush’s administration, also has said he intends to leave his post this year.
