Fairfax PR chief heads for new role in Obama’s team

Fairfax Media corporate affairs manager Bruce Wolpe is leaving the Australian publishing group for the job offer of a lifetime ... as a member of US president-elect Barack Obama’s team. Today’s ‘Australian’ reports that Wolpe – an American who has worked for Fairfax for ten years – will move to Washington in March as a senior adviser to Henry Waxman, with whom he worked prior to joining Fairfax. Waxman, dubbed the Democratic party’s ‘chief inquisitor’ by ‘Time’ magazine, will serve as chairman of the US house committee of energy and commerce, set to enact a significant part of the Obama government’s programme, the newspaper reports. “Barack Obama’s election is, for me, the political calling of our time and I want to be part of it,” Wolpe says in an internal note to colleagues. The suggestion is that he will take a significant pay cut with the move, but he says he is doing it, “because I believe in president Obama, his legislative agenda and the principled politics of Henry Waxman”. Wolpe worked with Waxman as his legislative director, and is reported to have a long history with the Democrats, having served on several campaigns.