Officially, Obama taps Mueller as state campaign chief

The Obama campaign announced today that Tricia Mueller, the political director for the New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters, will serve as state Director of Obama’s New Jersey campaign. Bob Decheine, the Chief of Staff to Rep. Steve Rothman, will serve as a senior advisor to the campaign.

"Our team in New  Jersey knows that strong organizations are built from the bottom up, not  the top down, and we look forward to working with area supporters as we  grow our grassroots campaign to end the failed policies of the past and  bring change we can believe in,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Richard McGrath, spokesman for the Democratic State Committee, immediately issued a release containing bios for Mueller and Decheine.

Political director of the state council of carpenters since 2000, Mueller is the only woman ever to have been a political director among New Jersey's building trades unions, and is the first female regional political director among the 50-plus regional political directors of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters.

Since October 2000 Mueller has been director of the New Jersey Regional Council of Carpenters Non-Partisan Political Education Committee (PEC), where she oversees the political and legislative agenda, fundraising, and considerable human resources of 18,000 union households representing 55,000 family members across the state.  

Mueller is a graduate of The College of New Jersey.  

According to McGrath, Decheine has worked on 16 campaigns including managing 9 competitive elections for U.S. House, U.S. Senate and President. He served as Communications Director for Senator Russ Feingold and has been a Chief of Staff in the House for over a decade.  For the past five years he has been Chief of Staff to U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9), the Northeast Regional Co-Chair of the Obama campaign.  Decheine is originally from Wisconsin where he earned a Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education and a Master's degree in History from the University of Wisconsin.