Ted Strickland (left), Jennifer Granholm and Tom Perriello could join the White House. | AP Photos Obama plans 2011 staff makeover

President Barack Obama has delayed the most significant staff shuffle of his presidency until after New Year’s — but the changes may be more sweeping than anticipated and could include the hiring of high-profile Democrats defeated in the midterms.

David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, who will become a senior adviser to the president as early as the first week of January, is perhaps the most significant addition to Obama’s staff. He is expected to take an expansive new role including running the embattled White House press and messaging operations, people with knowledge of the situation told POLITICO.


White House staffers hope the organization-minded Plouffe — combined with the steadying hand of interim chief of staff Pete Rouse — will professionalize an improvisational and, at times, chaotic organizational chart centered on former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a domineering figure during the administration’s first two years.

Obama’s thinking on other specifics of his reconfigured West Wing — as well as a new campaign operation and Democratic National Committee structure — is largely unknown. But changes are expected across the administration, with familiar faces moving into new roles, both inside and outside the White House, and some unfamiliar ones joining the ranks.

“The president has talked to a bunch of different people throughout this process on how to do the reorganization,” one official said. “You’ll definitely see faces that are new.”

But the lame-duck legislative session has consumed almost all the time and energy of senior staffers, especially Rouse, who is now more likely to use the president’s Hawaiian vacation to put the finishing touches on a broader reorganization plan.

Obama’s advisers, a tight-lipped and fiercely loyal group, have expressed increasing impatience with the pace of the reorganization, not so much out of fear for their jobs but out of the uncertainty of knowing precisely who is in charge of what. (See: W.H. girds for staff shake-up)

The delay, however, better suits Obama, who prefers to carefully deliberate before making major decisions, sources say.

“It’s harder to get his time on it” during the lame-duck session, a senior administration official said of Obama. “I think he’ll think about a lot of this on vacation.”

But several things are already clear. David Axelrod will depart as a senior White House adviser on Feb. 1, after Obama’s State of the Union address, to take a few weeks off before beginning to set up the president’s reelection campaign. (See: Axe going, Plouffe arriving sooner)

Jim Messina, one of Obama’s deputy chiefs of staff, will head for the exit shortly after Axelrod to help with the campaign, and Valerie Jarrett will stay as a senior White House adviser for as long as the president wants.

Beyond that, the restructuring of the Obama administration remains a mystery even to some of the president’s closest aides, which is making some in the West Wing nervous. (See: Inside W.H., calls for shake-up)

“It’s ‘Waiting for David,’” one aide joked about Plouffe, referring to Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” (See: Axe: Plouffe to W.H. 'sooner than later')

The only personnel change that a senior administration official characterized as “maybe, but unlikely” to come before the first of the year is the announcement of a new chairman of the National Economic Council to replace Larry Summers.

The top three contenders for the job, administration officials said, are Richard Levin, president of Yale University; Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration and currently an adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; and Roger Altman, chairman and CEO of Evercore Partners and another Clinton administration veteran.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters this week that he’s “not sure that’s going to get done by the end of the year.”

Shortly after the Nov. 2 midterm debacle, Obama told his senior aides to think about job openings for a handful of ousted members of Congress who were close to him — people he believes are competent and capable of providing service to the administration — especially Reps. Tom Perriello of Virginia and John Boccieri and Steve Driehaus of Ohio.

The president also reached out to those members to console them and to thank them for their loyalty but made no specific commitments, according to senior administration officials.

It’s not clear whether any former members have been offered jobs — or if former House members such as Perriello, an expert on Africa and international conflict resolution, would be interested in joining the administration.

Obama’s more difficult task will be finding appropriate slots for Democrats with longer résumés — such as outgoing governors Ted Strickland of Ohio, Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin — who aren’t likely to accept — or be offered — sub-Cabinet-level slots, officials say.

Obama’s Cabinet seems likely to stay more or less the same in coming months. The president met individually with each member after the election, according to administration officials, and while there has been some re-evaluation of goals going forward, there is unlikely to be an exodus.

One key part of Obama’s small inner circle that’s most in flux is the future of Gibbs, a longtime aide.

Gibbs will very likely end his tenure as the White House’s most identifiable spokesman to take on a new role as a senior White House adviser or perhaps to join Axelrod and Messina as part of the strategic group that will set up and help run the reelection campaign, with an emphasis on making Obama’s policy and political arguments.

Gibbs has had conversations with senior staffers about succeeding former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee should Kaine move on, sources said, but Gibbs came away from those discussions uninterested in the job.

Whom Obama names to replace Gibbs could offer one of the clearest indications of the president’s thinking about his White House — which has been criticized as too insular — in the second half of his term.

Deputy press secretary Bill Burton has been widely viewed as the heir to the podium. He has been groomed for the job since the start of the administration. But lately, Jay Carney, communications director for Vice President Joe Biden and former Washington bureau chief for Time magazine, has emerged as a formidable contender for the position because of questions about whether Burton, at 33, is too inexperienced for the job.

What is certain, officials said, is that Plouffe will be given broad control of the communications operation, with a hand not only in the day-to-day workings of the press shop but also in the messaging operation that has been overseen by Axelrod.

And Plouffe’s entrance will very likely result in a beefed-up, more streamlined messaging apparatus — possibly at the expense of the West Wing’s legislative affairs staff, which will most likely be downsized to match Obama’s scaled-back congressional agenda.

Rouse, an avuncular West Wing presence during tumultuous political times, is the front-runner to be Emanuel’s permanent replacement. But the longtime Hill aide gave Obama a two-year commitment at the start of the administration and, as one official put it, “One thing Pete has got to do is think about how much he wants to do.”

With Messina’s departure, Phil Schiliro, Obama’s director of legislative affairs, is seen as a likely new deputy chief of staff. Rob Nabors, a longtime Capitol Hill aide who worked under Emanuel during the passage of health care reform, is a possibility to replace Schiliro as the White House’s top congressional liaison.

Stephanie Cutter, who has worked closely with Axelrod as an assistant to the president for special projects and is valued in the West Wing as an effective messaging guru, is in the running for a senior adviser position if she stays in the administration. Sources said Obama values Cutter and has told aides he wants her to be given a more clearly defined role.

Carol Browner, Obama’s top energy and climate change adviser, is also expected to move up in the West Wing. Browner, who became Obama’s go-to person during the BP oil spill, might be named a deputy chief of staff, replacing Mona Sutphen, who is set to leave after the new year.

It appears the much-criticized White House political shop will not undergo extensive restructuring. White House political director Patrick Gaspard, once thought to be out the door, will very likely stay put, officials say, though he might eventually go to work on the campaign.

And in the foreign policy realm, Obama is expected to bring in someone from the outside to replace Denis McDonough, former chief of staff of the National Security Council, who was named deputy national security adviser under National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.