Profile of Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director

Dunn told her colleagues she wasn't surprised about the gender gap, according to this person, who asked not to be quoted speaking about the private meeting. She then instituted a plan that took Obama off mighty pedestals and put him at more picnic tables. The hemorrhaging of women voters soon slowed. Her firm signed up with Obama in the general election.

After Obama's election, he wanted Dunn as his communications director. Pfeiffer had effectively filled just that role in the campaign and transition, but Dunn had decades more experience.

Only she didn't want it. Dunn has explained that she promised her 12-year-old son that she'd return after the campaign. She missed her family, including her husband, Bob Bauer, the Obama campaign lawyer perhaps best known for sneaking onto a Clinton conference call with reporters to demand that Hillary's spokesman -- and his own client in private practice -- communications director Howard Wolfson, "stop attacking the caucus process." Getting back to her lucrative firm, of course, might have had something to do with it, too.

The administration reluctantly accepted Dunn's decision, but asked her to help them find a suitable substitute. And by suitable, they meant a woman.

Many consultants and staffers in Washington had expected deputy communications director Pfeiffer, who had worked under Dunn in the Bayh, Daschle and Obama shops, to get the job. According to people with knowledge of the process, Stephanie Cutter, a former deputy communications director in the Clinton administration, who played a major role in the 2004 Kerry campaign and successfully handled press for Michelle Obama during the campaign, was also approached for the job, and expressed interest.

Both Pfeiffer and Cutter were disappointed when Obama passed them over for Ellen Moran, executive director of the women's advocacy group Emily's List -- a Dunn suggestion with connections to Obama power brokers David Plouffe and David Axelrod. As a consolation, Pfeiffer was made the lone deputy communications director, and given the opportunity to sit in on high-level meetings.

In April, Moran abruptly left to become chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. This time the president succeeded in persuading Dunn, who had a strong reputation as a manager, to come aboard. And now, as she nears the end of her tenure, she has submitted to the kind of exposure that she has long eschewed in her circuitous career.

Glenn Beck, the alternately rabid and weepy commentator, targeted Dunn's remarks on his television show, which flashed Dunn's face on the bottom of the screen under the title "White House Watchdog."

"Anita, you enjoy the show," he said. "She's watching from her office right now. It's her job now. Hopefully we don't keep you up too late tonight doing whatever it is you are now doing with taxpayer money."