Leaving Obamaland

At The Daily Beast, Dayo Olopade explains that some younger administration staffers are leaving, either out of frustration or because of a perceived need to get a graduate degree.

Just after the 2008 election, 26-year-old Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes explained his choice not to join the administration: “There was never any particular position or set of responsibilities that really excited me,” he said. “There’s a challenge in prioritization, there’s a challenge in working within constraints of the law, any political constraints that are there, to actually get good work done.”

“You can’t flip a switch and change the country,” adds Evans, now at the USDA. “We’re like a big, slow tanker—and I think a lot of folks are frustrated with that.”

There is also an achievement gap between more experienced staffers and those with only a BA to their name. Thirty-year-old Alejandra Campoverdi, also profiled in the Times, has a master's degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School and now serves as an aide to deputy chief of staff Mona Sutphen. Joshua Dubois, the 27-year-old director of the White House faith office, graduated from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Foreign Affairs. Jason Green, a 29-year-old associate in the Office of Legal Counsel, balanced previous campaign experience with a degree from Yale Law. But there is a ceiling for the younger staff.