WH Denies Political Motivation for Sending Staff to Gulf States

The White House first denied and then scoffed at the idea it was pouring operatives and press aides into Gulf Coast states to smooth feathers, first oiled then ruffled by the administration's admittedly uneven response.

Questions arose after POLITICO reported the White House recently dispatched press staff and former campaign aides to Alabama, Mississippi and Florida - with the lion's share headed to electoral-vote rich Florida. This contributed to the impression the White House fretted its spill response could leave it vulnerable to a voter backlash in the state with 27 electoral votes (one tenth of the 270 needed for victory) that served as President Obama's southern anchor in 2008.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs described the motive in policy, not political terms.  "To improve inter-governmental relations," Gibbs said, saying the administration needs more staff to augment the efforts of Coast Guard personnel more than two months ago to smooth out communication between states and counties.

"Oil gets into a bay that is shared by both Alabama and Florida, right," Gibbs said. "The western -- or the easternmost county in Alabama, Baldwin County, is notified. The westernmost county in Florida, Volusia is not -- okay? A breakdown in communications from the incident command to the local level. I daresay I’ve gotten more than a few emails from your news organizations about the inability to get information from the Joint Information Center. "

The White House sent three new aides to work oil-spill issues jointly in Alabama and Mississippi (15 electoral votes), four to Florida and at least seven to Louisiana (9 electoral votes), according to Deputy Press Secretary Nick Shapiro.

Senior administration officials said all of the staff sent to the Gulf were low-level press functionaries - capable and hard-working - but no where near the stature of the operatives required to oversee the president's re-election in a state as important Florida.

"And if it was politics why would we send twice as many people to Louisiana as we are to Florida," said Shapiro. "We need people down there to help with the cleanup, to coordinate efforts between federal, states and local officials."

Shapiro said the White House began moving personnel roughly two weeks ago.

And while the staff on scene now may not pack the kind of political wallop as high-ranking West Wing officials or more-experienced field operatives at the DNC, it's an undeniable truth any White House aide will carry significant clout in the Gulf. They can and likely will act as the president's eyes and ears - an early warning system for any spill-related problems that may start off a policy-related but devolve into political problems later.

While that's important in Florida, the fact is most of the state hasn't been damaged by the oil spill - even though northwest coast beaches have taken a beating in lost tourist revenue. Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana have suffered far more coastal damage and together have no fewer than 10 White House staff to Florida's four.

That ratio appears weighted more heavily to spill response instead of long-term re-election preparations - 10 White House staff for three states worth 24 electoral votes to four White House staff for one state worth 27.

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