Meet Obama's bodyman: The White House 'Chief of Stuff' who caters to the President's every whim



Barack Obama’s first guests at the White House couldn’t have missed him.



Crammed into a tiny cubicle just outside the door of the Oval Office sat Reggie Love, a 6ft 5in, 18-stone, shaven-headed, muscle-packed, former American football player.

Though the man is fast, athletic and tough - he can bench press 350lb and played both basketball and American football at Varsity level - he is not one of the new President’s official bodyguards.



Heavy duty: Reggie Love, President Obama's bodyman, lugs bags to a car and, right, on the campaign trail



And though he has a degree in political science from one of America’s finest institutions, the blue chip Duke University, he is not a policy adviser.



Yet Reggie, a charismatic and immaculately dressed 26-year-old from Charlotte, North Carolina, spends more time with Mr Obama than anyone else - even the First Lady, Michelle Obama. For he is the President’s ‘bodyman’.

The bodyman is a curiously American political appointment, dating back to the first U.S. president George Washington, who paid his assistant Tobias Lear £250 a year to act as valet, secretary, bodyguard and general factotum.



The personal protection role has long been assumed by the highly-trained bodyguards of the Secret Service but, ever since Washington, every President has employed a trusted personal aide who caters for his every whim.



The role remained a little-known political tradition until the inner workings of the White House were dramatised in the TV drama The West Wing, where the handsome and dapper bodyman Charlie Young, played by Dulé Hill, was always at the right hand of fictional President Josiah Bartlet.

Obama and Reggie with another aide in the campaign aircraft



Like Young, Love is expected to shadow the President at all times, rarely straying more than a body length away from him during his waking hours.



It is Reggie who holds Mr Obama’s BlackBerry, dials the numbers on his mobile phone, briefs the White House chef on what the President would like for lunch and what he would like to drink.



Every time Mr Obama leaves for a meeting, Reggie hands him his suit jacket and dabs any spots on his tie with a stain removal pen.



Until Reggie Love, bodymen tended to be regarded as glorified butlers, hired for their self-effacing manners and efficiency at managing their employers’ schedules.



Their most public job was handing out souvenir cufflinks engraved with the Presidential seal to White House visitors.



But Mr Obama promises to be a different kind of President - with a different kind of

bodyman.



Reggie, who even the notably cool Mr Obama acknowledges is super-cool, has a suitably pithy phrase for his role. He is the White House Chief of Stuff.

Brotherly love: Reggie sticks close to Obama as they take to the streets



He will make sure the Oval Office kitchen is stocked with the President’s favourite energy snacks - including handmade milk chocolates from Fran’s Chocolates in Seattle, peanuts and raisins, roasted almonds and pistachios and chocolate roasted peanut bars.



He always has a pack of the President’s favourite chewing gum - Dentyne Ice - and dispenses nicotine gum. (Mr Obama is a secret smoker with a penchant for Marlboro cigarettes but promised Michelle he would quit if he ran for the White House.)



And he’ll always have a pen and notepad.



Reggie, who joined the Obama staff two years ago as a £20,000-a-year post room assistant and now earns around £75,000, works at least 18 hours a day.



He is up at dawn, bellowing instructions to the President as they go through a gruelling early-morning work-out.



Mr Obama also likes to play impromptu games of basketball and his bodyman, who was captain of the Varsity side at Duke, is always on his team.



Throughout the day, Reggie will constantly be on hand. He will make sure Mr Obama has a copy of his briefing notes or the latest version of his speech. He will also make sure the President knows who he is shaking hands with.

Fist lady: Obama and wife Michelle greet each other at a rally with a fist bump



But he is not just Mr Obama’s ultimate personal assistant. He has become a trusted friend.

The two men do, however, have one strict ground rule. They never speak about politics, restricting their conversation to music and sport.

When Mr Obama is through with his interminable meetings with policy advisers, he unwinds by talking to Reggie.

The two men exchange music on their iPods - Reggie is a fan of hip-hop music and has introduced Mr Obama to the rapper Jay-Z; the President, on the other hand, has broadened his young assistant’s repertoire by playing him music by Frank Sinatra and the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane.

Reggie even acquired a tattoo on his arm during Mr Obama’s campaign trail. The inscription reads: ‘My Word, My Bond, My Boyz, My Blood’ and alludes to his loyalty to Mr Obama and the Democratic Party.



Inauguration: Barack Obama - his hand on the Lincoln Bible held by his wife Michelle - is sworn in by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday

Most of all, the two men like to watch late-night sport on television, during which Love swigs Budweiser after serving his boss with bottled water.



‘One cardinal rule,’ the President has confided, ‘is we don’t watch the news. We don’t watch any talking heads or any politics. We watch sport and argue about that.



'There’s no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am... I am living vicariously through him,’ he added.



Reggie is even credited with encouraging the Harvard-educated President to lighten up by greeting friends and colleagues with a closed-fist ‘high five’ - known as a fist bump.

Mr Obama added, somewhat wistfully, that he regards ‘my guy, Reggie’ as the kid brother he never had.



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According to his old schoolfriends, Reggie Love’s relationship with Mr Obama is one of mutual respect, bolstered by the fact that both have overcome considerable odds.

Mr Obama’s early life with an absent father is well documented.



Reggie, meanwhile, grew up in a poor area of North Carolina, with aspirational parents who struggled to pay their bills.



Mark Raymond, who knew Reggie at high school, said: ‘He came from a working family and it was his mother who pushed education. She made sure he did his school work and he got good marks.’



Another friend said: ‘I can see why Barack Obama would bond with Reggie. Reggie is from a poor family that put high values on education.



'He was one of the best high school footballers in the country and was offered scholarships by universities with top teams - the sort of teams that might have led him to a professional sports career.



Daddy's girls: Malia and Sasha Obama stand on the stage ahead of their father's inauguration

‘But he picked Duke University, which didn’t have a great team but had very high academic standards.

'You see, this is all about personal responsibility. That’s what Obama is all about. That is what he keeps preaching to the black community.



'And Reggie saw the big picture and has shown responsibility. He has taken his opportunities and made the most of them.

'I’m sure Obama admires him. He can point at Reggie and say, “That’s the way to go”.’

Reggie shares another trait with Mr Obama.



The President was renowned in his youth for his beautiful girlfriends and has admitted to experimenting with marijuana and cocaine, as well as alcohol.



Reggie also had a wild side. He was dropped from the Duke basketball team for a while after being arrested for under-age drinking and after a picture of him apparently drunk at a university fraternity house party surfaced on the internet.



Reflecting on this period of his life, he said: ‘You make mistakes, you learn from them, and you try to use them to make you a better person.’

Enlarge

First day on the job: The President, with Vice President Joe Biden, gets down to work

Reggie graduated with a degree in politics and public policy in 2004.



He trialled for two professional American football teams, the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, but failed to make the grade and in early 2006 applied for a humble post room job with Mr Obama, who had been elected as a senator in 2005.



Reggie started at the bottom and became a political aide. But when Mr Obama launched his bid for the Presidency, he decided that he needed a bodyman.



Reggie’s initial chores could not have been more mundane.



On the campaign trail, he carried Mr Obama’s briefing book, iPhone and BlackBerry, a dufflebag with chewing gum, toiletries and snacks.



On one cold day in Indiana, he was seen with Mr Obama’s jacket draped at the ready over his arm.

By the time the Obama campaign reached Reggie’s home town a few weeks later, the local boy had become instantly recognisable.

At a rally in North Carolina, Mr Obama grinned at his bodyman as the crowd set up a chant of ‘Reggie, Reggie, Reggie!’

Reggie’s handsome features have been noticed in Washington. He has been earmarked as one of DC’s most eligible bachelors by People magazine and Vanity Fair.

Insiders at the White House insist that, for now at least, he does not have a steady girlfriend.

But Reggie remains ambitious.



Though he is devoted to looking after the President, Reggie says his exposure to the centre of power has inspired him to dream of going to law school, just like Obama, and returning to Washington in a more influential position.





... and the secret of the presidential watch

Time for change: Obama wears the watch as he gets down to business



For a man with the expensive style of Barack Obama, it at first seems an oddly jarring accessory - the relatively cheap and chunky-looking sports watch he has been pictured wearing.

The Jorg Gray 6500, which was made in China and generally sells for about £100, has replaced the £1,000 Tag Heuer Swiss timepiece that the elegant politician sported in the early days of his campaign.

On closer inspection, however, his new watch - which is stainless steel with a leather strap - turns out to be something of a rare model.



For, unlike the models available to the public, it is customised with the emblem of the U.S. Secret Service.

A Washington insider said last night: ‘The story going around the White House is that Barack’s political advisers said the Tag Heuer looked too expensive and that he should wear something anyone could afford.

‘By one account, when his agents heard about this, they clubbed together to buy him the new watch.



'They got him the same model, with the Secret Service logo, that they wear when on duty.’

Rare: A close-up of the watch with the Secret Service logo, right



The President likes...

Grilled fish, steamed broccoli, southern-style barbecues, cheeseburgers (with cheddar); Black Forest berry tea, bottled water; Dentyne Ice gum, handmade milk chocolates, peanuts and raisins, roasted almonds and pistachios, chocolate roasted peanut bars; basketball, Sinatra and John Coltrane.

... and dislikes

Mayonnaise, asparagus, salt and vinegar crisps and soft drinks. Trying hard to dislike cigarettes.

