Romney Bulks Up Team for General Election BOSTON - Mitt Romney has been busy dashing across the country. He is honing his message, raising money and, of course, bringing on new staff members to prepare for a general election contest against President Obama. Here is preliminary glimpse of what Team Romney: the General looks like. Austin Barbour, 36, who joined the Romney campaign in a volunteer capacity early on as a national finance chairman and also helped on the political side, is moving to Boston to come on board full time as a deputy to Stuart Stevens, a senior strategist. Mr. Barbour, the nephew of former Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, was also the Romney campaign's point man during the Mississippi primary, in which Mr. Romney finished third behind Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. In many ways, Mr. Barbour epitomizes the ideal Romney hire, as the campaign struggles to bring on new people to meet the growing demand of a general election campaign while still maintaining its disciplined and insular culture. He is trusted to stay on message, and many in the campaign have worked with him previously. He and Mr. Stevens have deep ties dating back to their native Mississippi; in 1982, when Mr. Barbour was still a boy, Mr. Stevens ran the Senate race for Mr. Barbour's uncle. The speechwriting operation, up until this point largely a joint effort between Mr. Romney himself and Mr. Stevens, will also get a face lift, with Lindsay Hayes becoming the director of speech writing. Ms. Hayes worked on the McCain-Palin speechwriting team in 2008, and was the senior writer for the Republican National Convention that year. She is currently finishing a Ph.D. in communication at the University of Maryland. Jim Ferguson, who had already relocated to Boston and was helping out on the ad side, will now officially join the creative team. Mr. Ferguson, the former president and chief creative officer of Y&R (formerly Young & Rubicam), previously worked with Mr. Stevens on President George W. Bush's campaign. The communications team is beefing up as well. Richard Grenell, who served for eight years as the communications director for the United States at the United Nations, is coming on board as the national security and foreign policy spokesman, and Sarah Pompei, who most recently served as the communications director for Kevin McCarthy, the House majority whip, will join the campaign as its deputy communications director for regional press. Mr. Grenell previously worked for President George H. W. Bush's re-election campaign, as well as for Senator John McCain's 2000 bid. Ms. Pompei previously worked as press secretary for Meg Whitman's gubernatorial campaign in California, as well as on Mr. Romney's 2008 presidential bid. Kristy Campbell, who serves as the national communications director of the American Conservative Union, the country's oldest and largest grass-roots conservative organization, will join the campaign as its deputy communications director for media affairs. She was previously press secretary to former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida. Rich Beeson, the campaign's political director, currently has one deputy, Todd Cranney, but will be adding two more: Jason McBride, who led Mr. Romney's successful New Hampshire effort, and Dan Centinello, who worked on Mr. Romney's 2008 bid, as well as the 2010 campaign of Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri. And, of course, some existing roles will be rejiggered. Sarah Nelson, Lamar Echols and Danny O'Driscoll will become regional political directors. Alex Wong, a lawyer and adviser at the State Department, will coordinate the foreign and national security policy for the campaign, while Oren Cass, a Bain & Company consultant who worked in Mr. Romney's 2008 policy shop, will coordinate the domestic policy. Correction: April 20, 2012 An earlier version of this post misstated the position of Jim Ferguson, a member of Mitt Romney's creative team, at Y&R. He is the company's former president and chief creative officer.