Axelrod to Leave White House After State of Union

CNN reports:

Washington (CNN) – President Obama is planning to bring former campaign manager David Plouffe onto the White House staff at the beginning of January to work alongside senior adviser David Axelrod for a brief time before Axelrod moves on to help run the re-election campaign, according to a senior administration official and a senior Democratic strategist familiar with the plan.

The sources added that Axelrod is now planning to leave his White House post as soon as immediately after the State of the Union address, which is an earlier departure date than originally expected and could be part of a new round of departures at the White House.

While there have been reports suggesting Plouffe will directly replace Axelrod, the working plan right now is actually for the two veterans of the 2008 campaign to work together for at least a short period as sort of a handoff, as the White House continues to reshape itself to deal with a Republican-controlled House and a shrunken Democratic majority in the Senate.

“I think there will be some overlap,” the senior administration official told CNN about Axelrod and Plouffe working together next January.

While Axelrod is known as a master strategist he is the first to admit that he’s disorganized, while Plouffe’s key strength demonstrated during the 2008 campaign was crafting a plan and implementing it with meticulous precision.

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Dems Outspend GOP on House Ads

The New York Times reports:

Despite a deluge of campaign spending over the last few months by Republican-leaning outside groups, Democratic candidates and their allies have outspent Republicans over all on television advertising in House races, according to data provided by Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. In Senate races, however, Republicans outspent Democrats.

The most recent numbers available, through Friday, showed that Democratic candidates and their allies spent $142 million on television advertising across all House races in the general election, compared with $119 million by Republican candidates and their backers. In the Senate, Republican candidates and their allies outspent Democrats, $159 million to $120 million.

The Democratic advantage on television spending in House races was something of a revelation, given all the attention that has been garnered this year by the staggering expenditures by Republican-oriented independent groups after a Supreme Court ruling in January that lifted restrictions on corporate political spending.

But it appears that the Republican-leaning groups were able to make a significant impact in many House races by leveling the playing field for underfinanced Republican challengers, who in previous elections might have had little chance against Democratic incumbents.

“Republican groups basically provided the advertising version of bridge loans for the underfunded challengers, running ads before they could go up on the air for themselves,” said Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

The pro-Republican groups were able to expand the political map, going up early with attack ads against Democratic candidates who had seemed to be in comfortable positions and putting them on the defensive.

What has remained something of an open question, however, was which party ultimately has had the financial upper hand, when spending by party committees and the candidates themselves was added to the spending by outside groups.

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