Obama Begins Gearing Up Re-Election Bid

By JONATHAN WEISMAN And LAURA MECKLER

The White House will announce as soon as this month the creation of President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, with fund-raising likely to begin in March or early April, said officials involved in the planning.

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President Obama greeting workers at Thompson Creek Manufacturing in Landover, Md., last week.

The looming departure of three top White House officials has brought into early focus the contours of the election effort—and has surfaced concern from some Democrats that Mr. Obama is beginning too soon.

Democratic officials said the re-election campaign needs an early start to establish Mr. Obama as a formidable candidate and begin raising money for a bid expected to cost each party around $1 billion.

White House officials declined to discuss re-election efforts.

After a disastrous midterm election for his party, Mr. Obama recently has been seeking to re-establish himself as a unifying figure who can appeal to independent voters. Now, some Democratic strategists close to the White House fear the return of Mr. Obama as a candidate could harm the repositioning effort.

Moreover, some of these Democrats, who at times advise Mr. Obama's inner circle, worry that the establishment of a campaign office in Chicago will create two power centers that may clash.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, presidential adviser David Axelrod and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina will all leave Washington in the coming weeks to form the core of a re-election campaign, with Mr. Messina directing the effort.

Mr. Obama's announcement that he is establishing a re-election campaign will be low-key, possibly just an email to supporters or a written statement, said a Democratic official familiar with the planning.

The president's 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, began work Monday at the White House as a senior adviser, overseeing political operations, communications and message. Officials said he will serve as a bridge to the Chicago campaign.

Messrs. Axelrod and Gibbs have said they will take time off to rest and make some money before starting on the re-election campaign.

Democratic officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a fledgling fund-raising effort will likely be under way in March, at first to raise money needed to open a campaign headquarters in Chicago, hire initial staff and set up Internet operations and a fund-raising apparatus. By April, those efforts should have yielded money to take the next steps, such as hiring field staff.

White House officials on Tuesday disputed that timeline but refused to say when the initial fund-raising would begin.

Senior officials from the Democratic National Committee who worked on Mr. Obama's 2008 campaign are likely to migrate to the re-election campaign.

Top Obama 2008 fund-raisers are likely to reactivate their campaign efforts, one Democratic official close to the effort said. White House political director Patrick Gaspard may move to the Democratic National Committee, partly to assure his salary isn't paid with taxpayer dollars when he is working on campaign activities.

The timing puts Mr. Obama's efforts on a faster track than those of many potential GOP rivals, but it isn't far off the course set by President George W. Bush in the 2004 election.

The Bush re-election campaign's statement of organization was filed in May of 2003. While Mr. Bush's campaign headquarters didn't open until that fall, one early Bush re-election aide said the fund-raising efforts began long before that.

For Mr. Obama, the initial fund-raising push in part will aim to show that he can fight in as many states as he did in 2008, when he won two-thirds of the Electoral College vote, Democratic officials said.

One Democratic official said he believed the president was just now losing the polarizing edge that dropped his approval ratings into the mid-40s last year. Mr. Obama rebounded to a 50% job approval last week in the Gallup daily tracking poll for the first time since early June.

Some Republicans gearing up to challenge the president said any effort on his part to regain political independents isn't likely to succeed. Alex Conant, a GOP strategist who advises former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, said Mr. Obama can't run as the "post-partisan" of 2008 because voters know him now as something different. "The center and independent voters who went for him in '08 abandoned him in the midterms," Mr. Conant said. "It's going to be hard to win them back because they've seen him govern as a movement liberal for two years."

The two most recent White House re-election campaigns, Bill Clinton's in 1996 and George W. Bush's in 2004, were both based in Washington. One Democratic official close to the White House worried that a distant campaign apparatus would create conflicting power centers.

James Carville, manager of Bill Clinton's 1992 campaign based in Little Rock, Ark., said the space between Washington and Chicago will inevitably lead to differences. "We used to have a saying in '92, when a lot of people wanted to be a help but wanted to be in Washington," Mr. Carville said. " 'If you're not here, you're not here.' "

Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com and Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com