And so whether it's failing to move forward on the Dream Act, failing to move forward on putting teachers back to work, failing to do all the things we could do right now to help the economy and middle class, this Congress is just saying no.

Beginning in 2003 Plouffe and fellow AKPD partner David Axelrod worked on Barack Obama's 2004 Illinois Senate campaign beginning his association with Obama. Following complaints from human rights groups Plouffe donated his speaking fees to the National Democratic Institute. MTN has been listed on the "Iran Business Registry" of prominent watchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran since 2009.

A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media which he joined in 2000. Plouffe was an outside senior advisor to Obama since the president's first day in office and was then appointed as a Senior Advisor to the President (inside the White House) in 2011 following the resignation of David Axelrod who went on to start Obama's reelection campaign.