A New York Times profile of White House senior adviser David Plouffe has a telling quote from former chief of staff Bill Daley regarding his unique relationship with President Obama.
“The president probably took David’s opinion with more certitude than he did anybody else’s,” said William M. Daley, who left as chief of staff last month after a year in the White House. “If David said X, I think the president would more often believe X than challenge it.”
Plouffe, the Times reports, was an important part of the President’s decisions to become more combative with congressional Republicans — a shift that has coincided with Obama’s uptick in job approval — and pushed for an “aggressive early tack” against Mitt Romney.
Plouffe was an instrumental part of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. The Times describes him as “fiercely unsentimental,” “intense and self-contained,” and a “temperament alter ego to a president who has always been drawn to loyal fixer types.”
