TPM2012

Know Your Spox: A Look At The Obama Campaign Staff

President Barack Obama and Senior Adviser David Axelrod

Pema Levy & Benjy Sarlin May 23, 2012, 5:00 AM

With the general election firmly in its “non-stop shouting” phase, spokesmen and women for both candidates are flooding the zone with cable TV appearances, statements to the press and oh so many snarky tweets. If you follow the campaign closely, you’ll likely see their names and faces hundreds of times before we hit November, so you might as well get acquainted now. Here’s a rundown of a few of the most prolific mouthpieces for the Obama camp. (Tomorrow: A look at Team Romney.)

Team Obama

Ben Labolt is national press secretary for the Obama campaign and has a long history with the candidate, having served as a spokesman for his Senate office, 2008 campaign and in the White House.

Labolt also did a stint in Chicago with Obama’s former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel after the president’s top aide left to run for mayor.

Relentlessly on message, LaBolt has been one of the campaign’s most effective attack dogs against Romney and frequently pokes at the GOP rival on Twitter.

David Axelrod , a Chicago journalist-turned-strategist, has been a prominent and fiercely loyal advocate for Obama since his earliest days in politics, helping to turn his political skills and compelling biography into a presidential brand.

Obama consulted him, for example, as a state senator before delivering his now famous speech decrying the Iraq War in 2002. Obama has hardly been Axelrod’s only big client, though — by the time the 2008 campaign got under way, he’d done work for three other candidates, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd, making for an awkward reunion on the trail. Axelrod, now a strategist for the 2012 Obama campaign, is still a prominent player, reliably making headlines as a surrogate with his wry sense of humor.

This week, he appeared on MSNBC to help put out the fire created by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, flatly telling host Andrea Mitchell that Booker was“just wrong” to condemn campaign attacks against Bain Capital.

Stephanie Cutter is Obama’s deputy campaign manager and a veteran of some of the roughest Democratic fights in recent memory.

Cutter ran communications for John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and joined up with Obama in the 2008 race, where she helped shepherd Michelle Obama through a race in which right-wing critics tried to paint her as anti-American.

After the election, Cutter handled strategy for the White House’s years-long effort to pass and then defend health care reform. She’s never far from where the action is hottest on the 2012 trail, frequently hosting calls with reporters on the campaign’s biggest issues and taking to TV to represent Obama on everything from Bain Capitalto the Trayvon Martin shooting.

Lis Smith is director of rapid response for the Obama campaign. Smith is responsible for a continuous barrage of press releases, statements and facts sheets challenging Romney on every minute aspect of his campaign.

“Did Paul Ryan say something nice about Romney’s tax plan on FOX News? Expect an e-mail from Smith entitled “Ryan’s Distortions Can’t Erase Romney’s Dismal Job Creation Record In MA” with several dozen links to back her up.

Smith is also a ubiquitous presence on Twitter, where she often live-tweets Romney speeches with a steady stream of fact checks and snark while occasionally sparring with Republican aides.