By Mike Memoli, Jonathan Allen, Carol E. Lee and Alex Seitz-Wald -
NBC News
WASHINGTON — Finding a re-election campaign manager for President Joe Biden remains a problem for his top aides, according to multiple sources familiar with the talks, underscoring the difficulty of finding someone who can run operations while in power. Decision making remains in the White House.
The campaign manager and other senior officials are likely to function more as enforcers than decision makers, a reality that has been a hard sell for some seasoned policy professionals.
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“Do you want to take a job that has five bosses?” asked a source familiar with the process, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.
In response to characterizations that the Biden team is having trouble filling the campaign manager job, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said: "That's false."
Biden's top advisers are speaking with several candidates for the campaign manager job and other senior management positions, according to the sources.
So far, according to three sources close to the process, recruiting has focused on people who ran some of the most competitive 2022 midterm races, as well as veterans of the Biden 2020 campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
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A person familiar with the process noted that the informal nature of the talks at this late stage suggests that Biden's advisers are simply trying to "get the right people on the bus, and then figure it out from there."
The fight over personnel takes on a new urgency with the possibility of Biden launching a campaign as early as April, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The completion of the president's physical on Thursday ticked another item off the pre-announcement “to do” list.
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But asked about key campaign decisions that remain pending, Bates replied: "This is as inaccurate as NBC's previous reporting on the matter."
Robby Mook, who ran Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, which was plagued by his own competing centers of power, opined that the role of campaign manager will remain critical to Biden's re-election, even if the person incumbent position does not have all the reins.
“Yes, a lot of messages will come out of the White House,” Mook said.
“But that doesn't mean the campaign manager isn't important.
What it means is that he has to do a really good job exploiting all the advantages that he has," he added.
Those advantages include being able to focus on raising money, conducting opposition research and building campaign infrastructure while Republicans decide who their nominee will be.
The White House platform, and all the benefits of incumbency, also provide a potential advantage for Biden this time around.
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“You can't campaign in Wisconsin or Michigan from the White House,” Mook said, by way of example.
“So I think it's a very important job.
But I think appropriately the campaign is going to look for a manager who is going to understand that profile."
President Joe Biden in Lanham, Maryland, on Wednesday.Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Inside the White House, senior adviser Anita Dunn and deputy chief of staff Jen O'Malley Dillon will play important roles, as will advisers Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain has also made clear his intention to participate in Biden's re-election campaign from the outside, as happened four years ago.
There is also the Biden family, including the first lady, Jill Biden, and her sister, Valerie Biden Owens, who have been intimately involved in his political career.
Biden fosters a decision-making process that seeks input from that high-level group on key decisions before final approval, a dynamic that would continue into his 2024 campaign. So the challenge for Biden's team is to find a campaign manager who can operate on that system, and do it miles from the White House.
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“They are not the quickest decision makers,” the source opined about the president and his core team, meaning the Biden campaign manager has to be someone who feels confident making decisions on their own and “ apologizing later” if necessary.
One adviser to the president took it differently, saying that Biden's 2020 campaign demonstrated that campaign leaders and advisers to the president work well together within long-clearly defined roles.
The adviser also pointed to the significant achievements and lack of significant turnover in the Administration as an effective model that would continue.
Dunn and Dillon O'Malley have experience working on a presidential campaign while the top officials served in the White House.
O'Malley Dillon, Biden's 2020 general election campaign manager, was President Barack Obama's deputy campaign manager in 2012;
Dunn was also a senior adviser on Obama's re-election.
“They know both the opportunities and the challenges,” said Stephanie Cutter, who worked with O'Malley Dillon at Obama's re-election headquarters in Chicago.
“The structure between the White House and the campaign has to be extremely agile, with White House appointees to lead coordination with the campaign, and vice versa,” she explained.
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According to several Democrats familiar with the process, several people who have been approached for the campaign manager job have turned the conversation around and have offered to fill other roles or as outside advisers.
At the same time, some members of Biden's tight-knit team believe that the people who have volunteered for the job lack the experience needed for the job, say people close to the process.
That experience, these people say, includes overseeing a sprawling campaign organization and serving as a public face on camera.
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“I don't know if they can't find a campaign manager, but rather if they can't find the one they want,” said one of the sources familiar with the conversations.
To be clear, playing that role is attractive to many agents, and it should be.
“You're running a great operation,” said a veteran Democrat, citing the value the job held for Obama re-election campaign manager Jim Messina.
"It's a great opportunity to advance your career."
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Some of the conversations with the job candidates have included in-person interviews in Washington, while others have taken place virtually, according to two sources familiar with the process.
The sources also noted the informal nature of the ongoing conversations, with potential candidates occasionally receiving emails or text messages from Biden aides asking for their views on strategic decisions.
Biden intends to continue to count on the Democratic National Committee as well.
The DNC is hiring staff - some on a temporary basis and some who may stay longer - to help build the initial infrastructure needed to launch the campaign.
Another major factor affecting Biden's ability to attract a top-tier staff is where the campaign will be based.
In 2020, Biden was determined to have his campaign based in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, before advisers convinced him to base it in Philadelphia.
This time, however, Wilmington seems to be the main option.
A Biden adviser said the campaign was also likely to have offices in Washington, as it has in previous re-election bids.
The site of the 2024 Democratic National Convention could be decided sooner: Chicago and Atlanta are the top two options, according to another Biden adviser.
Of course, the Biden team also conducted most of the 2020 campaign virtually.