Posted on 10/16/2013 4:33:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Dan Pfeiffer’s fingerprints are all over the White House’s strategy of not negotiating with congressional Republicans over the government shutdown and debt ceiling.
The senior adviser to President Obama has been plotting the White House’s every move, and is described by some within the administration as the
“relentless guardian” of Obama’s no-negotiations stance.
“He’s been the most ferocious on that principle,” one senior administration official said. “He was quite adamant and relentless about this. And on the face of it, it’s not an easy argument to make.”
Even before the shutdown began on Oct. 1, Republicans had turned their fire on Obama, criticizing him for not negotiating.
But a string of recent national polls on the budget battle show Republicans have taken the worst of the public opinion backlash by far.
A Gallup survey registered the GOP’s lowest approval rating ever in the poll’s history, while a few polls during the fight have actually showed Obama’s approval ratings climbing, largely because of support from within his own party.
White House officials argue the polls underline the success of their messaging.
The White House began planning its messaging strategy for the fiscal fights in the summer, with weekly meetings to discuss the looming crisis, senior administration officials say.
White House officials and those close to Obama credit much of their strategy and messaging discipline to the 37-year-old Pfeiffer, who has taken a greater role with the absence of Obama advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe.
They say he worked closely with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough to ensure the West Wing was disciplined in the execution of the strategy and policy process. Pfeiffer also played an instrumental role in ensuring that Obama “talk directly to the people,” one senior administration said, in a series of interviews with local network affiliates around the country, as the president did on Tuesday.
Other key players included deputy chiefs of staff Rob Nabors and Alyssa Mastromonaco.
“Dan is very consistent and structured in the way he thinks,” Nabors said, recalling the brainstorming sessions he’s had with Pfeiffer. He compared them to the discussions “you would see in a West Wing episode.”
“His mind is an organized mind,” Nabors added. “He can look at something, go away overnight and come back and say ‘this is what I think we should do.’ ”
Questions had been raised about whether Pfeiffer could fill the shoes of Plouffe, his predecessor and mentor, who helped catapult Obama to the White House twice.
One former senior administration official said those questions were underlined when Plouffe’s job was divided between Pfeiffer, Nabors, McDonough, senior adviser David Simas and other senior officials.
“There was this sense that he was in over his head,” the former official said. “He was no Plouffe.”
Pfeiffer has had his share of stumbles, and was blamed by some for the lackluster rollout of the healthcare reform law.
More doubts emerged when Pfeiffer went on a string of Sunday shows in May and “tanked,” in the words of one strategist.
Adding insult to injury, on one of the programs, Bob Schieffer, the host of CBS’s “Face the Nation,” called into question Pfeiffer’s experience. “Why are you here today? Why isn’t the White House chief of staff here to tell us what happened?”
Observers wondered if he was dabbling in tasks way beneath his pay grade when he inadvertently landed in hot water last week for mistakenly tweeting out the N word.
“Plouffe would have never put himself in that situation,” a Democrat close to the White House said. “It would have been too nitty gritty for him.”
Pfeiffer’s West Wing colleagues say the criticism is unfair, and that the West Wing’s success in the shutdown fight will boost perceptions of Pfeiffer. “There’s a perception on the outside that there’s a B Team here,” Nabors said. “But the reality is Dan is an incredibly talented guy ... he’s a living legend.”
Plouffe also defended his protégé in an interview.
“It’s ridiculous,” he said of criticism of Pfeiffer.
“[Dan] is someone in his own right who has played a role in President Obama’s successes. His judgment and strategic sense is deeply respected and it was when Axelrod was there and when I was there,” he said.
Pfeiffer even dealt with a health scare while planning the shutdown strategy in September when he was hospitalized twice with stroke-like symptoms.
White House officials and allies contend that it was Pfeiffer who applied lessons learned from the 2011 debt ceiling and the “fiscal cliff” battles.
More than anything, “He learned that you have to know where the red lines are,” Plouffe said.
“You need to be able to look through the rear view mirror a little but also look through the front shield window, and Dan is very good at that. He’s very good at playing things out and thinking where we’ll be two weeks from now and four weeks from now.”
Pfeiffer was aware, senior officials said, that Obama’s hard-line, no-negotiating approach could lead to a possible shutdown and he was “willing to be the only guy in the room who was arguing for that,” as one official said.
“A lot of people thought it was unsustainable,” the senior official said. “But, it appears we’re trending in a good way.”
Interesting article. I’ve seen him on shows a few times, and, quite frankly got no sense whatsoever that he was this talented, smart, yada, yada. I found him to be rather swarmy and creepy.
A related article by Ed Klein: “Author Ed Klein Claims Obama Aide Jarrett Is The ‘Architect’ Of Shutdown Showdown”
Fox News ^ | 15 Oct 2013 | Carl Campanile (The New York Post)
Posted on Tuesday, October 15, 2013 7:21:45 PM by 11th_VA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3079462/posts
I’ve posted more than once that I think Jarrett is behind it all and I don’t mean just the “I will not negotiate” or current events. I think many here feel the same.
Your article mentioned that sometimes he goes away overnight and comes back with a plan. Wonder if he devised the plan, called ValJal and she told him the plan, or if she and he came up with the plan together.
The architect is Jarret, the night stalker...
Jarret is the brain. You seldom see her in public view, that’s what makes it obvious.
Also, I'm a single issue voter in the NEXT election - either you support the Vitter Amendment or you don't. That in itself should win the Senate in 2014 and keep the House in GOP hands.
And of course, we still have 'Sequestration, if the Pubbies don't screw it up, we should be back to 2008 spending levels in another year or so. Resetting the baseline budget to those levels??? That's the Teaparty's crowning achievement
Who knows, there's still many lawsuits on Obamacare out there, maybe one will kill it, but in the mean time, it is turning out to be worse than anyone thought. The Democrats own it, and if they want to change it, it's got to go thru the House ...
So overall, I'm not disappointed with 'the hand' we hold ...
Probably right, Pfeiffer just oozes sleeze, he’s too much of a horse’s rear end to come up with anything that has any intellectual depth.
Pfeiffer’s the salesman in the used car lot, but Jarret’s in the office looking at the sales board and figuring out which buttons to push on theses guys.
Actually the above post is informative.
Obama had a real plan.
Dems saw that and they stuck together from beginning to end.
They all repeated a common simple set of messages over and over not changing much.
They saw Obama hold that he would give GOP NOTHING.
Now he is more popular with Dems than ever.
Too bad Dems dont have organized opposition.
They had Reid as attack dog, and Obama above it all lecturing to us ill behaving children. Pelosi pretty much stayed out of it except to repeat over and over ‘we are ready to open government was soon as Bohner lets us’
In contrast we had a fractured GOP that had no plan, no one really leading and no consistent messaging.
The end result is not really a surprise to many.
The ‘Obama wont compromise’ line was good sounding and showed promise, but once many in the GOP were seen as going to the WH for negotiations that line of attack was nullified.
Resulted in surrender negotiations.
I heard Ted speak once or twice before and liked him. However, this has given me much more of an opportunity to hear him (watched as much of the filibuster as I could) speak on the floor of the Senate as well hold his own better than almost anyone against the MSM on talk shows, etc. I would say the same thing about Sen Mike Lee and Rep Louis Gohmert - think they are awesome! I’ve always thought Sen Sessions (AL) was great and I’ve been able to hear him more. I’ve also been seeing Rep Huelskamp (KS)on FNC - he’s been doing a good job, too.
I tend to mostly agree with you, except that I won’t necessarily vote because of the Vitter Amd.
If it weren’t for the Obummer-swooning LSM, I think the Pubbies would be winning this right now. That said, I’m not so sure they’re losing this battle, regardless of the bogus polls, etc.
I’m thinking one of the lawsuits against Obummercare may just help bring it down (or at least parts of it, the rest will come tumbling down because of that, many not signing up (especially young folks who are supposed to help pay for it - cheaper for them to pay the fine), and, it’s starting to get bad press, even from the libs - - there was a thread about one of the bloggers from Daily Kos who was in sticker shock about the high percent he and his wife’s insurance went up. There are similar stories starting to come out all around.
I agree about the Sequester - Pubbies need to hold firm on that. I think (hope) that’s something even the RINO’s can agree on; however,I never under estimate the stupidity of McLame,Gramnesty and McConnell (not to mention Collins and Mc & G’s new little buddy, Ayotte).
I’m not too disappointed with it either. I’ve been impressed how the House Pubbies have held together (with a few exceptions like Peter King (D/R-NY). I also think it’s cool that many of them had a “secret” (private) meeting at a restaurant the other night with Senators Cruz and Lee.
“A Gallup survey registered the GOP’s lowest approval rating ever in the poll’s history, while a few polls during the fight have actually showed Obama’s approval ratings climbing, largely because of support from within his own party.”
This poll is being used a relentless talking point, but it misses what is gong on. The is not mad at Cruz. The base is sick of the GOPe!
A Gallup survey registered the GOP’s lowest approval rating ever in the poll’s history, while a few polls during the fight have actually showed Obama’s approval ratings climbing, largely because of support from within his own party.
A classic ruse holding correlation as causation. The reason many many conservatives would be dissatisfied with the GOP has NOTHING to do with 'Congress' intransigence,' quite the contrary. It has more to do with the GOPe lack of spine in dealing with this narcissistic brat we have in the White House.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.