Obama campaign chiefs meet quietly with Clinton in Harlem

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From National Memo:

President Obama’s top political operatives — including campaign chief adviser David Axelrod — traveled from Chicago and Washington to the headquarters of the William Jefferson Clinton foundation in Harlem last Wednesday afternoon for a meeting with the former president and two of his top aides. The topic? How to re-elect the current president — including some very specific advice from Clinton, according to sources present.

The Nov. 9 meeting, which went on for more than two hours, also included Clinton counselor Douglas Band and Justin Cooper, a senior adviser whose multiple responsibilities have included work on the former president’s memoir and last two books. Their guests were former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is serving as Obama’s 2012 campaign manager; Patrick Gaspard, executive director of the Democratic National Committee who until recently oversaw political affairs in the White House; and Obama’s lead pollster Joel Benenson, who played the same role in the 2008 campaign.

“We were the ones who reached out for the conversation,” said one of the participants from the Obama campaign, who confirmed the details. “We did so to lay out the landscape for the [former] president as we see it, but our particular interest was to receive his insights, and we were fortunate enough to benefit from them.” The same source said that they hope and expect to engage regularly with Clinton.

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