Jen Psaki to Join Obama Campaign as Traveling Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki, one of the best-known and most well liked aides in President Obama's long 2008 campaign and then in his White House, is joining his re-election effort after less than a year as a private-sector consultant. Ms. Psaki will become Mr. Obama's traveling press secretary next week, a role that makes her the campaign counterpart to the White House press secretary, Jay Carney. The need for the separate press officers reflects the president's dual roles as candidate and head of state. "With the president on the road in the campaign, we needed a traveling press secretary," said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama's longtime strategist. Jen has a long association with the president and is respected and trusted by the news media. She is a thorough-going pro. There simply was no one better for this role. Mr. Obama probably spent more time traveling with Ms. Psaki during the 2008 campaign than with any other aide, and he tried to dissuade her from leaving the White House last year. During the earlier campaign, she filled a lesser role as the campaign's liaison and spokeswoman to the media entourage, and she reported to Robert Gibbs, the campaign press secretary. Now Ms. Psaki will have broader responsibilities in dealing with the news media, including being a frequent face of the campaign on television and a member of the campaign brain trust in Chicago. Ms. Psaki has already been a frequent pro-Obama presence on cable television news programs, though she has been working since October as senior vice president and managing director for the Washington office of Global Strategy Group, a public relations firm with corporate, nonprofit and political clients. She will take a leave from the firm through the election. In the White House for nearly three years, Ms. Psaki rose from deputy press secretary, acting as a daily intermediary between the news media and Mr. Obama's crisis-forged economic team, to deputy communications director, responsible for long-range communications strategies on anticipated issues and policies. On a communications team often criticized by Democrats outside the White House as too insular and prickly, the affable and unflappable Ms. Psaki was easily the most popular member and was said to be runner-up to Mr. Carney for the press secretary job in 2011.