Here’s a bit of Washington career advice — if you want a top job working for President Barack Obama — make sure Joe Biden is your boss first.
The Vice President’s communications director Shailagh Murray is becoming the latest Biden alum to ride the pipeline from his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office building to the West Wing.
Murray, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter, is stepping into the shoes of Obama’s recently departed senior political adviser Dan Pfeiffer as the commander-in-chief retools for the home stretch of his presidency.
While Obama’s inner circle has been notoriously difficult for outsiders who didn’t bond with the president during the 2008 White House run to penetrate — those who come from Biden’s office seem to do just fine.
And Biden’s ability to place his confidants at the center of the President’s political team is one indication of the behind the scenes influence that the vice president has exerted on the administration. Obama seems to really trust his number two’s eye for talent.
Tom Donilon was a Biden guy for years — and worked on the vice president’s first presidential campaign in 1988 — an association chronicled in the classic trail tale “What it Takes” by Richard Ben Cramer.
Later, Donilon rebranded himself as a foreign affairs expert and ended up as Obama’s National Security Adviser in the President’s first term.
Jake Sullivan worked as a foreign policy hand for Biden in the White House and played a key early role for Obama in the secret early diplomacy that set up the drive for a nuclear deal with Iran.
He’s currently tipped for a top role in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, after also traveling the world with the former secretary of state and is presumed by many Washington’s insiders to have an inside track to become National Security Advisor if she makes it to the White House.
Murray is not the only former journalist to ride the Biden career track. Former Time reporter Jay Carney leapfrogged over long time Obama loyalists when he replaced Press Secretary Robert Gibbs in 2011. Carney had previously apprenticed as a spokesman tasked with putting out media fires for the notoriously loose lipped Biden.
Whenever there’s a crisis in Washington, Ron Klain seems to get the call. Most recently the famed political fixer and debate coach helped Obama ride out a political storm by coordinating the US response to Ebola.
Klain had served as Chief of Staff to Biden during the first Obama term and also worked for the former Delaware Senator on Capitol Hill.
Current Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is also a Biden man, having advised the vice president on foreign policy before transiting the West Wing as a deputy national security advisor on the way to Foggy Bottom. Blinken had previously caught Biden’s eye as the Democratic Staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.