The Space Between

Within the space between President Obama and the press is Robert Gibbs. Who is Robert Gibbs? He is a paunchy 39-year-old man that grew up in Alabama known as Bobby. However he is not just the ordinary southern man, he is the current Press Secretary. His parents were librarians who paved the way to his political career by simply just being themselves. They were liberal Democrats in a state that was not.

Gibbs began his path to Press Secretary in 1992 by volunteering for the campaign supporting Bill Clinton. From there he became friends with a man that would ultimately get him into a job working directly with Barak Obama. Jim Jordan who ran John Kerry’s campaign kept Gibbs in mind while in this position and gave him the National Press Secretary job. However, this ended in 2003. Gibbs ended up quitting because Kerry had fired Jim Jordan. This was not the end of the road for Gibbs however. In later months Jordan informed Gibbs that the people running Barak Obama’s Senate campaign (Axelrod & Plouffe) were in search of a communications director, and that was the beginning of Gibbs’s relationship with Obama and his new career.

Obviously now, Gibbs is the Press Secretary, so things worked out well to say the least. However, it does not stop there. There is more than meets the eye. Obama and Gibbs became friends almost instantly. They have always been on the same wavelength in their friendship and in politics.

Gibbs was and is more than supportive in the way in which Obama chooses to run his campaign and administration. Although compared to the “Bush model” the Obama campaign believed in keeping information safe by having a tight knit group of confidants, they all believe that this prevents leaks from happening, and if there are leaks, the situation is easily rectified. Gibbs had no problem backing up Obama on this front and is said to have had punitive actions on people for ‘shady’ reports. Gibbs is self admitting that he may have been much less than gentile with the press during the campaign, however he stand behind his actions, while at the same time saying the he regrets some of the things that he did.

As far as their friendship goes, Obama and Gibbs have a unique dynamic. It is not the normal situation for the president to be so close to his Press Secretary. Obama says that now that they are in the white house nothing will change. Obama will still confide in Gibbs and use him as a soundboard for any array of things.