If it was done truthfully, Obama would have been down another 10 points!
Stephanie Cutter: The White House Fixer
Part communicator, part strategist, and always unflappably loyal, Cutter is often called “the one-woman SWAT team” in the White House. Since the administration last spring “coaxed her into coming back,” as senior Obama adviser David Axelrod puts it, her projects have included explaining health-care legislation to the public, and handling veterans’ issues in the pullout from Iraq. (Her earlier gig was as spokesperson for embattled treasury secretary Tim Geithner.) “When you have an important assignment, she’s the first person you think of,” says Axelrod, who speaks with her daily. “She handles everything with such competence and a minimum of fuss.”
Cutter cut her chops in the Clinton White House, while also picking up a law degree from Georgetown at night. But she made her name working for Ted Kennedy. “My uncle thought the world of her,” says Caroline Kennedy, who calls Cutter “a really good friend, who really cares” as well as one she, too, relies on for counsel. “She can figure out the consequences of any action right at the beginning. She also inspires a lot of trust; you feel she’ll be on your side the whole way.”
“My philosophy,” Cutter says, “is if you’re going to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for not a whole lot of money, why work for someone you’re not gonna be loyal to?”
Most unsung accomplishment: She’s the person the Obama campaign turned to when Michelle Obama found herself in treacherous image waters after, for example, she said that the voters’ embrace of her husband was making her “proud” of her country “for the first time in my life.” Predictably, Cutter doesn’t want to take credit for Mrs. Obama’s turn-around. “It around. “It was really just allowing Michelle to be herself. And allowing people to see the real Michelle.”
What she could be doing instead: When Obama right-hand man David Axelrod wooed her back to the White House, she had taken time off from the political-animal industry to teach at Harvard and start her own (very lucrative) communications consulting business. “She always has held out the option of going back,” Axelrod, “but the fact is, Stephanie has always been about public service. She loves it, that’s where her heart is. I’m hoping that she’ll follow her heart and stay with us.”
Her first job in politics: Working on the Dukakis campaign as an intern. (First paid job: Working for Mario Cuomo.)