Valerie Jarrett, White House Liaison and Obama Confidante-in-chief

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Christine Bowman

The new title she has been given is a mouthful: "Senior Advisor to President Barack Obama and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Relations and Public Liaison." What it means is that Valerie Bowman Jarrett is a person whose talents and wisdom the new President intends to keep tapping. "I trust her completely," the President has said. But Valerie Jarrett is also an indispensible friend to the new President and First Lady.

An attorney and businesswoman, Valerie Jarrett was an ever-present counselor and diplomatic problem solver during the presidential campaign. She also cochaired the Obama/Biden transition team, is a veteran of two law firms and Chicago City Hall, and rose in business to serve as president and CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development firm that managed 20,000 residences. Around Chicago, she is a long-time, highly sought-after civic leader well known as a networker who knows everybody. It seems probable that her formal responsibilities in the Obama White House will take full advantage of that talent and background.

^{Valerie Jarrett and Bill Clinton share a laugh at Vernon Jordan's and Buffy Cafritz's pre-inaugural party Monday. Clinton adviser Jordan happens to be Jarrett's great uncle. (Jim Brantley, Washington Post)}

Valerie Jarrett's friendship with Barack and Michelle Obama began in 1991 when she interviewed and hired Michelle Robinson for a job in the mayor's office. After the interview, the three enjoyed a now legendary, leisurely dinner, during which the job applicant's fiance elicited all manner of interesting biographical details from her prospective boss.

As it turned out, Valerie Jarrett's life trajectory shared many threads with both Barack's and Michelle's. Her roots were in Chicago's South Side, like Michelle's. Her parents, faculty members at the University of Chicago, still live in the neighborhood as do many relatives on her mother's side. Her forefathers, like Barack Obama's, had a tradition of ambition, high achievement, and prestige. She was born overseas when her father, a pathologist and geneticist, was running a children's hospital in Iran.  She also lived in London for a year and traveled extensively through much of Africa. She began her political career working for Harold Washington, Chicago's first Black mayor and another South Sider. Washington, who died in office, was to many a huge political hero when Barack Obama first arrived on the Chicago scene in the late Eighties. Harold Washington homages are woven into Dreams From My Father.

Many intertwining threads connect Valerie and Michellle professionally. Ambitious high achievers both, they started their law careers in large firms but moved on to more public-service oriented work after personal events triggered a reassessment. In Valerie's case, the shift was in response to the birth of her only daughter Laura (now a Harvard Law student), and in Michelle's case it was the death of her father. At various times, both have worked for Chicago mayors, for the University of Chicago Medical Center, have served not-for-profit organizations and have sat on corporate boards.

For her part, Valerie Jarrett admits a close emotional tie to both Obamas. As she told a Vogue reporter in October as the campaign was peaking:

Michelle and Barack are really dear to me. I mean, I love them. And I don't want to see them get hurt. Just the nature of politics is hurtful. So every time they are hurt, I get hurt. It's a lot to ask of people, and it's a lot to see your friends go through." She starts to tear up. "It's hard not to get emotional."

In the same article Barack Obama describes Valerie Jarrett's role:

She participates in every conversation we have in the campaign. She is involved in broad strategic decisions about our message and how we approach the campaign, and she's involved in the details of managing the organization. She's really a great utility player. She's always very insistent on me trusting my instincts. One of the dangers in running for higher office is you get so much chatter in your ear that you stop listening to yourself.

Certainly, the Obamas will have a loyal friend and kindred spirit nearby them with Valerie Jarrett working at the White House. As Time reported before her new job had been determined, "Of her relationship with the 44th commander-in-chief, Jarrett says simply: 'He is my dear friend. I would do anything the President of the United States asked me to do.'"

And as she told Vogue, she can make Barack Obama laugh when the going gets tough. She and a couple other friends did just that a few months back in Indiana, when troubling press reports and disappointing poll numbers had dampened the candidate's spirits. In 2009, with the state of the nation and the world what they currently are, and with the Obamas' personal lives disrupted by two years of campaigning and the move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the president and first lady may value that particular talent of Valerie Jarrett's above all else.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS