Obama’s Chicago campaign staff living good life — away from Washington

[alp227]

Since May, a steady trickle of aides has left the White House for a more blustery climate, temporary apartments and minimal presidential perks. They are now reassembled here in President Obama’s home town as his 2012 campaign staff, facing a grim political environment shaped by the worst economic outlook in decades and a dismal job-approval rating for the commander in chief.

Yet compared with their colleagues in Washington, the Chicago crew members are living the good life. And not just because they have a putting green and ping-pong table in the middle of the office.

Unshackled from the day-to-day machinations of governing, and unburdened by the partisan intensity of official Washington, the Chicago team is energized by the clarity of its purpose: getting Obama reelected. That means focusing not on Washington, but on laying the campaign groundwork in key battleground states that will decide the contest.

That also means working on issues, large and small, in corners of the country far removed from Washington: aiding a state Senate race in eastern Iowa; helping to coordinate a volunteer effort to elect a Democratic mayor in Tucson; recruiting a nationwide stable of lawyers in preparation for possible lawsuits and voter-registration fights from Florida to Wisconsin.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-chicago-campaign-staff-living-good-life--away-from-washington/2011/11/17/gIQAZmGbtN_singlePage.html

[Historic NY]

1. OFA was already doing ground work in Ohio's recent election.

[ellisonz]

2. Honolulu = Obama's Home Town.

Chicago is his adopted home town. Thanks WAPO. Sorry pet peeve...

Chicago is centrally located. That makes running a field campaign from there ideal because it is proximate to flights in from almost anywhere in the country and especially from swing states.

This reads like a hit piece trying to say that the Obama staffers are staid because they won in 2008...