At HQ

ENLARGE PHOTO+

Journalist turned political consultant David Axelrod, far left, shaped Obama's message of hope and change and has been its most devout believer and defender—even when Obama has slipped in the polls.

Callie Shell / Aurora for TIME

• Share

The Strategist: Journalist turned political consultant David Axelrod shaped Obama's message of hope and change and has been its most devout believer and defender — even when Obama has slipped in the polls.

The Manager: Obama has said his low-key campaign manager, David Plouffe a former congressional aide and Axelrod's business partner, "never gets any credit but has built the best political organization in the country."

Veteran political consultant Anita Dunn oversees the operation that constitutes the closest thing the Obama campaign has to a war room, combining message, research and policy.

Imposing and instantly recognizable at 6 ft. 4 in., Reggie Love is the "body man" — responsible for everything from Obama's briefing books to his protein bars — and a regular basketball partner.

Policy director Heather Higginbottom has been in charge of shaping a domestic agenda that she has described as a plan to undo Bush Administration policies.

A top executive with her family's Hyatt hotel empire, Penny Pritzker is national finance chair of what has been the most successful fund-raising operation ever seen in presidential politics.

A close friend of Barack and Michelle Obama's for nearly two decades, former Chicago Transit Board chief Valerie Jarrett has been called "the other side of Barack's brain."

Communications chief Robert Gibbs served the same role in Obama's Senate office and in his 2004 Senate campaign. Gibbs is usually the first line of response in a political crisis.

Obama says his Senate chief of staff, Pete Rouse, now working full time for the campaign, is "as smart and savvy a person as there is on Capitol Hill but is completely ego-free."