Current Position: White House Communications Director (May 2009 to November 2009)
Credit: Chip Somodevilla/
Getty Images
Why She Matters
Dunn tried to stay out of the White House. One of Barack Obama’s closest advisers during the 2008 presidential campaign, she was the president’s first choice for communications director but said she wanted to return to her political consulting firm.
However, when Ellen Moran left her post in the communications shop in April 2009 to be chief of staff for Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Obama once again asked Dunn to join him at the White House. This time, she acqiuesced, and agreed to join the Obama team on a temporary basis.
A leading campaign expert, Dunn typically stays out of the spotlight, telling even local papers that the focus is on her candidate and often refusing to give interviews about herself.
But Dunn made headlines in her last month with the Obama administration when she called out the Fox News cable television channel for what she called biased reporting. WhiteHouse-watchers suspected Dunn was willing to be the bad guy because she was planning to resign shortly after, which would allow the White House to distance itself from the controversy.
In November 2009, the White House announced that Dunn would step down at the end of that month to return to her consulting firm, Squier Knapp Dunn, and that her deputy, Dan Pfeiffer, would take over.
At a Glance
Current Position: White House Communications Director (since May 2009 to November 2009)
Career History: Senior adviser for strategic communications (April 2008 to November 2008); Director of Hopefund (May 2006 to December 2006); Political adviser at Squier Knapp Dunn (1993 to 2009)
Birthday: N/A
Hometown: N/A
Alma Mater: N/A
Spouse: Robert Bauer
Religion: N/A
DC Office: N/A
Email N/A
Web site
Path to Power
Dunn, the daughter of a social worker, got her start in politics during the Carter administration when she worked for Carter’s chief of staff. She worked for Sen. John Glenn’s (D-Ohio) unsuccessful 1984 presidential bid before joining the Senate office of Bill Bradley (D-N.J.). In 1993, she left Capitol Hill to join Bob Squier’s legendary political consulting firm.
Dunn returned to Bradley’s side as his communications director and chief strategist for his failed 1999 presidential run. She left the firm and worked for little money to help Bradley, with whom she remained close. “There’s no question that the Bradley presidential campaign really, for me, represented why I had gone into politics and was, in many respects, a campaign that reflected my views about the American political system and the changes that needed to be made,” Dunn said.
Adviser to Sen. Tom Daschle
Dunn began working closely with Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (S.D.) after the 2000 election as a senior political adviser to his political action committee DASHPAC. In the meantime, she continued to serve as a political adviser for Squier Knapp Dunn.
During the 2004 Senate primary in Illinois, Dunn advised one of Obama’s opponents, Blair Hull (D), and she counseled Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who was considered a possible 2008 presidential contender. Dunn was also part of Daschle’s team when he lost to Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) in the 2004 Senate race. It was as a member of Daschle’s team that she became close friends with future Obama advisers such as now-senior White House aide Pete Rouse.
Obama’s Team
In May 2006, Rouse convinced Dunn to take a job as head of Obama’s leadership PAC, Hopefund, through the end of 2006. Obama was still more than six months away from announcing his intention to run for president, but the move increased speculation that he would challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) for the 2008 Democratic nomination.
After a hiatus, Dunn returned to Obama’s team in April 2008 with the title of senior adviser for strategic communications as Obama prepared for the general election. Though Obama was not yet the Democratic nominee, he bolstered his communications staff as he neared the nomination.
After Obama won the presidential race, Dunn declined a job in the White House, saying she wanted to return to Squier Knapp Dunn. "After the privilege of participating in this historic campaign I look forward to returning to my firm and bringing the fresh approach to strategic communications developed on the Obama campaign to new projects," Dunn told The Washington Post. "It is a unique opportunity to build on that experience."
When Ellen Moran left in April 2009 to become Commerce Secretary Gary Locke's chief of staff, Obama against approached Dunn about taking the job. This time, she accepted.
But Dunn made it clear that she was only taking the job temporarily, and would soon return to her family and to Squier Knapp Dunn.
In November 2009, Dunn announvced she would leave the White House at the end of that month.
In Their Own Words
“I think at some point you’ve got to say to yourself, these candidates are people who have chosen to enter public service and they feel that they’ve got something to say and things they want to do,” Dunn said. “So give them a chance to actually say that.”
The Issues
"She’s extraordinary in her ability to frame complex policy issues in ways that are relevant to people’s everyday lives, and there aren’t many out there who are better at driving message," said fellow Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee.
Dunn’s expertise is as a media consultant. Dunn says she feels strongly that candidates should introduce themselves to the public through ads that discuss their background, not just run issue ads.
Colleagues say Dunn has a talent for expressing personal narratives in compelling commercials, and, after three decades in politics, she understands how to handle a candidate better than almost anyone. "What she does better than most is listen to a candidate and make sure that issues do not become more important than the candidate's personality, character and vision," said Democratic pollster Dave Beattie. She was reportedly one of the advisers Obama listened to most closely during the 2008 campaign, a fact that is evidenced by Obama asking her twice to join his administration.
A pet peeve of Dunn’s is that political campaigns have largely morphed into debates on process instead of the issues. She said it is a disservice to politicians when voters are judging candidates by their perceived motivations. “I think at some point you’ve got to say to yourself, these candidates are people who have chosen to enter public service and they feel that they’ve got something to say and things they want to do,” Dunn said. “So give them a chance to actually say that.”
Dunn and the Fox News Channel
During her short time in the Obama administration, Dunn made headlines when she accused the Fox News Channel, owned by Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp, of being more of a wing of the Republican party than a news organization.
"We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” Dunn told the New York Times. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”
Some surmised that Dunn volunteered to go after Fox because she planned to leave the White House soon after, which would allow the administration to distance itself from the controversy.
The Network
Dunn is a longtime business partner of Bill Knapp at Squier Knapp Dunn. The former Daschle aide is a close personal friend of senior Obama adviser Pete Rouse and is familiar with other Obama aides who worked on the 2004 Daschle Senate campaign, including White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, who will take over for her as communications director when she steps down. 
She is also a regular attendee of White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod’s bi-weekly pizza and politics meetings of top Obama political operatives, including David Plouffe, Joel Benenson and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon.
Dunn is married to Robert Bauer, an attorney who worked as Obama’s personal lawyer during the campaign and is now counsel at the Democratic National Committee.
Campaign Contributions
Dunn has personally donated more than $30,000 to political candidates since 1997, all of it going to Democrats or left-leaning groups like EMILY’s List. She donated $2,300 to Barack Obama in 2008.
(photos courtesy White House photostream / Pete Souza, Linda Davidson / TWP)
Do you know where your lawmakers stand on the hottest issues in the health-care reform debate? Join us in tracking and tallying the stands of all 535 Senators and House Members by the end of September.
Help us profile government's technology gurus. This project is in partnership with GovLoop.com.
