Local man is Obama adviser

Contributed Auburn Villager Bob Gibbs serves as presidential candidate Barack Obama's director of communications.

Maybe you remember little Bobby Gibbs. He and his brother John were born here, he went all the way through Auburn city schools, and he graduated from Auburn High in 1989.

And oh yeah, now he's presidential candidate Barack Obama's director of communications and one of his senior strategists, part of a tight-knit group of advisers who keep Obama on track.

"His job title is a little deceptive," notes Newsweek Magazine. "Gibbs—who is officially in charge of Obama's message machine and responsible for the care and feeding of reporters—spends much of his time doing something else: he is Obama's traveling counselor and sometime court jester."

The Gibbs family lived in Auburn for 25 years, leaving in 1991 for North Carolina, where Robert attended North Carolina State. The younger Gibbs graduated cum laude with a degree in—you guessed it—political science.

While living in Auburn, Gibbs' mother, Nancy, was very active in the community. She was involved with the Auburn Public Library, the PTA and the League of Women Voters, to name a few organizations.

"Auburn was a lovely small town and a great place to raise a family," she says. "And I can tell you Bobby thinks very, very fondly of his time in Auburn—both of our children had good experiences there."

Nancy Gibbs laughs when asked where her son developed his interest in politics.

"When I worked as a volunteer for the League of Women Voters, I didn't have a babysitter," Nancy Gibbs recalls. "The children went where I went."

That meant they got to see a lot of voters registered. And before the computer era, ABC News worked with the League to track voter turnout and vote tallies.

"I popped my kids in the car and off we went to voting places, and then I got on the phone with ABC News. I guess it rubbed off," she says.

Nancy Gibbs says that in their family, politics was considered something you should know about as an American citizen.

"There were always very lively conversations at the dinner table," she recalls.

Robert and Nancy Gibbs, Bobby's parents, worked for the Auburn University library system. The elder Robert Gibbs retired as associate university librarian from AU, and when Nancy was offered a job at North Carolina State, the family moved back to her husband's home state. She is now head of acquisitions at Duke University Libraries in Durham, N.C.

The younger Gibbs worked for several summers as an intern on Capitol Hill before taking a full-time job, his mother recalls. Over the years, she says, he has worked for at least 10 Congressmen, and was director of communications for the John Kerry presidential campaign but parted company with Kerry in 2003.

"Then Obama was thinking of running for the Senate, and he and Bobby connected," his mother says. "When Sen. Obama decided to run for president, Bobby left job his job with the Senate and went with the presidential campaign."

The younger Gibbs has moved to Chicago for the campaign while his wife, an attorney, and their 5-year-old son remain in Virginia.

"We know we probably won't see him much for the next eight weeks," Nancy Gibbs says. "We see him on television!"

There are advantages to being the mother of a politico, Nancy Gibbs admits. For one thing, everyone in her family—including her mother and her sister—has met the presidential candidate.

And when Gibbs accompanied Obama on a recent vacation trip to Hawaii, Barack and Michelle Obama babysat Gibbs' son when he and his wife went out to dinner.

"That's our grandson's claim to fame," Nancy Gibbs says. "He wrote me a postcard about it."

When asked who she'll vote for November, she doesn't hesitate.

"Of course I'll vote for Obama—and not just because my child works for him," she says.