ENG - Robert L. Gibbs (b. March 29, 1971) is an American political consultant. Gibbs is the communications director for U.S. Senator Barack Obama and Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. Gibbs, who has worked with Obama since 2004, was press secretary of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign and has previously specialized in Senate campaigns, having served as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and for four individual Senate campaigns, including those of Obama in 2004 and Fritz Hollings in 1998. Gibbs was also the press secretary of Representative Bob Etheridge. Gibbs gained considerable noteriety after his appearance on Oct.7, 2008 on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes, during which he confronted Sean Hannity for giving a forum to Andy Martin to accuse Barack Obama of training for a radical overthrow of the American Government without noting Martin's history of conspiracy theories and Anti-Semitism. On November 22, 2008, Gibbs was announced as the press secretary of the Obama administration. - Have you voted in the poll Robert Gibbs ? -
 
Career
While a student at North Carolina State in 1991, Gibbs became an intern for Congressman Glenn Browder. Gibbs quickly rose through the ranks of Browder's staff, rising to become the representative's executive assistant in Washington, D.C.. Gibbs returned to Alabama in 1996 to work on Browder's unsuccessful Senate campaign that year. In 1997, Gibbs was press secretary for Congressman Bob Etheridge of North Carolina and, in 1998, was spokesman for Senator Fritz Hollings' campaign. Gibbs worked in the campaigns of two other senators and served as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, before taking the position of press secretary of John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.
 
Barack Obama
Gibbs joined Barack Obama's 2004 campaign staff as an advisor and remained with the senator through the first two years of Obama's term. - Has changed the detail your opinion on Robert Gibbs ? - Gibbs is credited with guiding Obama through those first years and molding his rise on the national scene. According to the New York Times, Gibbs advised Obama on politics, strategy and messaging, and spent more time with Obama than any other advisor.
 
U.S. presidential election, 2008
The appointment of Gibbs by Obama to the post of communications chief was met with mild controversy by some critics in the Democratic National Committee, who cited Gibbs' role in the aggressive campaign tactics used to block the nomination of Howard Dean in the 2004 race. Obama, however, referred to Gibbs as his "one-person Southern focus group" and welcomed him as part of his close-knit team that included strategist David Axelrod, campaign director David Plouffe, and research director Devorah Adler. In his communications role, Gibbs became known as "the enforcer" because of his aggressive rapid-response methods for countering disinformation tactics from opponents. - Have you read details about Clinton Bill ? - Gibbs assumed responsibility for "shaping the campaign message, responding to the 24/7 news cycle, schmoozing with the press and fighting back when he disagreed with its reporting." As the chief intermediary between the Obama campaign and the press, Gibbs sought to counter the Republican National Committee's opposition research tactics against Barack Obama in early 2007. He is largely responsible for not making Obama as available to the media as some felt he should be.

Gibbs adopted a policy of rapid response to claims by conservative news outlets that questioned Obama's religious upbringing. In response to the "Obama is a Muslim" meme suggested by these claims, Gibbs disseminated information to other news networks that Obama is not nor has ever been Muslim. At the time, Gibbs said, "These malicious, irresponsible charges are precisely the kind of politics the American people have grown tired of."

After comments by George W. Bush to the Israeli Knesset questioning Obama's foreign-policy platform's focus on international diplomacy, Gibbs responded, calling Bush's comments "astonishing" and "an unprecedented attack on foreign soil." Gibbs argued that Bush's policy amounted to "cowboy diplomacy" that had been discounted by Bush's own Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and quoted with Gates' own words: "We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage. . . and then sit down and talk...if there is going to be a discussion, then they need something , too. - Can Robert Gibbs have an infuence on Bill Clinton ? - We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us."

He was widely blamed by news media executives for "holding hostage" reporters, while Obama and Hillary Clinton met for the first time after a heavily-contested Democratic primary season. He countered back, “It wasn't an attempt to deceive in any way... It was just private meetings.”

In his efforts to combat claims by the John McCain campaign of ties between Obama and Weather Underground co-founder Bill Ayers in the weeks before the election, Gibbs raised his own national profile when he confronted Fox News Network's Sean Hannity about his repeatedly bringing up the subject of Ayers during the interview. On the air, Gibbs challenged Hannity's attempts to associate Obama with a terrorist because Obama once served on a charitable board with Ayers. Gibbs countered that not only did the board also consist of Republican McCain supporters, Hannity himself had hosted Andy Martin who had previously made comments interpreted as anti-semitic. Amidst contentious debate, Gibbs argued that, if Hannity's claim that Obama is a terrorist due to an association with Ayers is accurate, one would then have to accept that Hannity is an anti-semite because of his association with Martin. - Did you know that Robert Gibbs is popular at 73% of voters? -

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gibbs

5.1.2009