The White House is bringing onboard high-octane Clinton administration veteran Jennifer Palmieri, a top official at the progressive Center for American Progress think tank, to beef up its communications unit heading into 2012, POLITICO has learned.
Palmieri, who currently serves as president of CAP?s political action fund and as a senior vice president at the parent organization, replaces former deputy communications director Jennifer Psaki, who left for the private sector earlier this fall.
Continue ReadingOne Democratic insider described the hire as a ?wow? because Palmieri is a true Obama outsider with a reputation as a canny political strategist. She?ll have instant credibility within the tight-knit West Wing with responsibilities that will expand well beyond her title, administration officials say.
Obama?s top aides, led by communications director Dan Pfeiffer, have been in talks with Palmieri for about a month.
Palmieri has deep connections to the Washington press corps, having served as DNC national press secretary during the 2002 cycle and John Edwards? top spokesperson two years later. She has even deeper links to top players in the Obama administration.
Palmieri began her career working for Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, then a California congressman, and went on to serve as a special assistant to Panetta when he became Bill Clinton?s chief of staff when Clinton was president. She was one of the few senior staffers to spend eight years in the Clinton White House, the last three years as a deputy press secretary.
Her relationship with Panetta will come in handy as the White House and Pentagon negotiate the deepest cuts to the Pentagon in a generation, hundreds of billions in possible reductions that Panetta says would render the military ?a hollow force.?
Palmieri?s interactions within the Edwards family were more complex. She was an Edwards true believer in 2004, but served as a part-time consultant in 2008 as she became increasingly disturbed by the candidate?s personal shortcomings. At the same time, her friendship with Elizabeth Edwards, who was dying of cancer, deepened.
Palmieri was one of a handful of friends Elizabeth Edwards, who died a year ago Wednesday, leaned on at the end of her life.
?We shared many, many laughs in 2004. But the 2008 cycle was very different,? Palmieri wrote in a Jan. 2012 Washington Post tribute to Edwards.
?It is hard to explain, even to fathom, how difficult these past three years have been on her,? she wrote. ?I understand that if your husband betrayed you as badly as hers did, you might have a hard time knowing whom to trust? When she reads this, I know that she will point out the things I said that are wrong or unfair, and express particular dismay at any sentences I ended with prepositions. I love her for that.?
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