Bay State players taking stage with Obama
Assume senior roles in next administration
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Chicago is now the center of gravity for the Democratic Party, but Massachusetts's presence will be felt in the Barack Obama administration. As the president-elect assembles his team, Bay State players are assuming senior roles in the transition and still-forming administration, including a colony of campaign workers from Red Sox Nation who used their own group e-mail list - redsox@barackobama.com - to track upcoming games on television.
"Let's just say that when the Sox win their next World Series, there will be more than one Big Papi jersey in the crowd on the White House lawn," said Dedham native Tommy Vietor, a campaign and transition spokesman and part of the group of Massachusetts natives or transplants who worked for the campaign and are candidates for administration jobs.
With only some cabinet and top White House posts filled thus far, appointees include: onetime US Treasury secretary and former Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers, 53, of Brookline, as director of the National Economic Council; Amherst native and EMILY's List executive director Ellen Moran, 42, as White House communications director; and Jon Favreau, 27, of North Reading, director of speechwriting in the White House.
Summers sat out the primaries but advised Obama once he locked up the nomination, while Moran and EMILY's List's political action committee backed Hillary Clinton for the nomination. Favreau, who wrote speeches for John F. Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign after graduating from college, won raves as Obama's chief speechwriter during the campaign.
"I call him Mozart . . . because he's a boy genius; he makes beautiful music on the page," said David Axelrod, the campaign strategist who will serve as senior adviser to the president.
Moran's selection surprised many in Obama's camp, but Axelrod said she was well known and highly regarded by top campaign officials impressed by Moran's managerial and strategic communications skills. During the campaign, Moran turned down at least one overture to join the Obama team, citing family issues and a commitment to EMILY's List President Ellen R. Malcolm, Axelrod said.
Moran has an extensive background in national politics, with strong ties to the national party and AFL-CIO. In 2004, she was in charge of the Democratic National Committee's independent expenditure unit, and hired Axelrod's company and another firm to make ads to help Kerry. "It was a shotgun marriage of two firms that could have been difficult, but it worked beautifully," Axelrod said.
Asked about the prospects of some other Bay Staters mentioned as candidates for top jobs, Axelrod demurred.
"I've been staying out of the leak fest and speculation fest, and I'm not going to start now," he said.
Among those being mentioned are:
Robert C. Pozen of Boston, chairman of MFS Investment Management and former vice chairman of Fidelity Investments, who is on a short list to become chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. A Democrat, he served for a year as secretary of economic affairs in the Republican administration of then-governor Mitt Romney and on Bush administration panels that studied ways to strengthen Social Security and improve securities information for investors. Pozen was SEC associate general counsel in the Carter administration.
Jane F. Garvey of Northampton, who headed the Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Highway Administration under Bill Clinton, for a top post in transportation. Speculation intensified last month when she resigned from the board of
A much longer list of campaign workers who are candidates for administration jobs includes:
Raynham native Stephanie Cutter, chief spokeswoman for the transition, and senior adviser and chief of staff to Michelle Obama during the campaign. Previously, she was communications director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy and the Kerry presidential campaign.
Betsy Myers, who left as head of a program at Harvard's Kennedy School to become the Obama campaign's chief operating officer.
Franklin native Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who came over from John Edwards's campaign to direct Obama operations in 22 battleground states. She broke into politics with Scott Harshbarger's unsuccessful campaign for Massachusetts governor in 1998, and later ran campaigns in other states.
Stephen J. Kerrigan of Lancaster, who worked on campaign scheduling and now is chief of staff to the executive director of the Presidential Inauguration Committee. Kerrigan was chief of staff to former state attorney general Thomas F. Reilly after serving on Kennedy's Senate staff for more than a decade.
Amy Brundage of Rockport, who joined the campaign after a stint as Obama's Senate press secretary. Before that, she worked on the campaign and Senate staffs of John F. Kerry.
Bedford native Neera Tanden, Belmont native Brian Deese, and Wayland native Sarah Hurwitz, all of whom came over from Hillary Clinton's campaign after she conceded. Tanden, a senior policy adviser specializing in healthcare, worked in Bill Clinton's administration and on Senator Clinton's staff. Deese, an economic policy specialist with Washington think-tank experience, was an intern in Kerry's office before getting his first taste of campaigning in Christopher Gabrieli's unsuccessful congressional race in 1998. Speechwriter Hurwitz worked previously for the 2004 presidential campaigns of Wesley Clark and Kerry. Some of Obama's chief supporters in Massachusetts have no plans to move. Governor Deval Patrick has been Shermanesque in his denials and says he will finish his term and seek reelection in 2010.
Investor-philanthropist Alan D. Solomont of Weston, who chaired Obama's prolific fund-raising effort in New England, said he will help others who were active find administration jobs but plans to stay in Massachusetts himself.
He said he will continue to serve on the board that oversees AmeriCorps and other national service programs that Obama has pledged to expand dramatically.
Solomont, 59, and a veteran of six presidential campaigns, was appointed by Bill Clinton and reappointed by Bush.
Solomont drew contrasts between the Democrats involved in Obama's election and those in 1988 when Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis was the Democratic nominee and 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected with a lot of help from the Dukakis team and others from the Bay State.
Back then, Massachusetts had outsized influence, he said, because activists came of age in the Kennedy and Dukakis eras.
"But this is a transformative moment," said Solomont. "The era of the baby boomer is over; the players are, by and large, relatively new and relatively young; and the center of gravity today is Chicago."
"Massachusetts remains central because of our love of politics and our talent base, but you'd have to say that even in Massachusetts the players are newer and younger," Solomont said. "I'm an oddity in that I provide a little continuity."
