Very interesting. One of Obama's most senior aides is a former Alaskan who's whispering in the president's ear about the Alaska gasline...
Senior Obama adviser has deep Alaska roots
By TOM KIZZIA, tkizzia@adn.com
Published: February 21st, 2009 08:32 PM
Last Modified: February 21st, 2009 11:32 PM
He once helped run state government in Juneau, played shortstop in a local softball league, and he still votes as an Alaska resident.
But these days, Pete Rouse works in the White House, two doors from his close friend, President Barack Obama.
For 25 years as the consummate Democratic insider in the U.S. Senate, Rouse played a quiet role as the backdoor connection for Alaska's all-Republican delegation to the other side of the aisle in Congress. He was the longtime chief of staff for Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., the one-time Senate majority leader, and starting in 2004 Rouse took on the same job for a promising young freshman senator from Illinois.
Today, as special adviser to Obama, Rouse is in the innermost circle of the West Wing. His office sits between chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and communications director David Axelrod (for fans of "The West Wing" television series, that would be Josh Lyman's office).
It was because of Rouse that Obama was the only presidential candidate to speak about Alaska's natural gas pipeline before the primaries began, said former Gov. Tony Knowles, a Democrat, who got help from Rouse during his unsuccessful 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate.
Full story: adn.com
President Barack Obama meets in the Oval Office with longtime senior staff members, from left, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs and senior advisers Pete Rouse and David Axelrod. |
