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An internal memo from Washington Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli, obtained by FishbowlDC:

Looking Ahead at the White House and in Congress

Though we’re all still waiting for the curtain to finally come down on the 2008 presidential campaign, an equally compelling and competitive story begins Wednesday morning. In anticipation of the next administration we’ll be reorganizing the National staff over the next few months and want to begin that process by filling some essential jobs.

Anchoring our coverage of either a McCain or Obama White House will be four reporters. Three of them were central to our excellent campaign coverage this year: Mike Shear, Anne Kornblut and Chris Cillizza. They will be joined by a seasoned veteran – Mike Fletcher, who covered the Bush White House with distinction before moving to Financial, just in time to chronicle the powerful economic shocks of the last year.

Mike Shear learned most of what he needed to know about politics on the Virginia staff, and as our lead reporter in the Republican race
demonstrated an impressive range writing enterprise and breaking news while hop-scotching among long-ago campaigns for people named Huckabee, Giuliani and Romney. Anne came to the Post from The New York Times last year, bringing with her a deep knowledge of Democratic politics, particularly related to Hillary Clinton. Since last summer, she has brought the same perceptiveness and writing skills to her coverage of Barack Obama. Chris crammed a decade’s worth of coverage in the last two years, writing analysis and breaking stories on our website, as well as enterprise stories
and a column in the paper. He will continue his must-read political blog, The Fix. Mike Fletcher is ideally prepared to cover a presidency that will have to cope with massive economic challenges.

For the 111th Congress convening in January, Shailagh Murray will be back in place on Capitol Hill, after a terrific sojourn documenting the rise of Obama. She will rejoin Paul Kane, who has stayed on the Hill and had an incredibly busy autumn covering the 110th Congress. Joining this strong team will be Perry Bacon, who in his year and a half since coming here from Time Magazine has spent time with every major presidential candidate and written perceptively and engagingly about them all.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll have more to say about the new shape of our
national coverage. In the meantime, we’re thrilled with the new team that will soon take the field.

Marcus, Phil, Rajiv, Bill

And Cillizza sent the following email to his email list:

All,

As the election draws to a close, I wanted to say thank you to everyone on my email list for traveling on this journey with me.

I also wanted to let you know the plans for The Fix after tomorrow’s election. The Fix will continue but rather than being focused primarily on the campaign, we will turn our attention to the White House.

I will be part of a four-person team tasked with covering the transition and the White House — hoping to break news and provide analysis of the politics and the policy of either President McCain or President Obama. I’ll be writing for The Fix and the paper.

Thanks to all for your support and kind words throughout this election season and for your continued backing as we take The Fix to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Have a great election day tomorrow.

Best,
Chris

From an internal memo, obtained by FishbowlDC:

With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries just weeks away, we’re growing our National campaign team, with help from an amazing array of talent from just about the entire Post newsroom.

Starting Sunday we’ll launch Candidates Week — eight days examining the front-runners in each party. Terrific and insightful profiles for each came from a team of great writers from around the paper — Sally Jenkins, Eli Saslow, Sue Anne Pressley Montes, Joel Achenbach, Mike Ruane, Kevin Merida, Liz Clarke and Michael Leahy – while photographers Melina Mara,Linda Davidson and Preston Keres barnstormed the country in search of the candidates and produced stunning black and white portraits. Style’s Robin Givhan has deployed her withering gaze on How the Candidates Look, joining our Dana Milbank on What They’re Saying, Michael Dobbs as the Fact Checker, John Solomon on Things You Didn’t Know about the candidates and Dan Balz, Mike Shear and Anne Kornblut on How They’re Running. Helping us put it all together into one smart package have been editor Lynda Robinson,generously on loan from the magazine, and Justin Ferrell, Outlook’s designer.

We are also making two additions to the national politics team to help us navigate the mad dash through the most intense primary season yet for a presidential campaign. Starting Monday, Steve Ginsberg of the Virginia staff will join us on a temporary basis to help politics editor Tim Curran plan and execute coverage. Steve is an accomplished editor with a gift for organization that we can surely use. He comes to us through the good graces of Bob McCartney, who had already lent us two of his best writers for candidate profiles.

We’ve also created an exciting new joint venture with washingtonpost.com: a national web politics editor/producer through the election to help us deal with the increased volume of news on the web and to help us take The Trail in new and innovative directions. It will be filled by Garance Franke-Ruta, who has made a name for herself as a keen observer of politics and its intersection with the web from her perch as a writer at the American Prospect and on her own blog, thegarance, which she will suspend when she arrives here. She will also begin work with us Monday.