Two Obama Staffers Depart

Two mid-level staffers have left Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in recent weeks, but campaign aides said the two departures were not related and did not reflect internal dissension.

One is Erica Brooks, initially the campaign’s southern regional political director and most recently its state director in the Feb. 5 primary state of Georgia. Brooks was a manager at the DNC and was a long-time aide to former Sen. Max Cleland. The reasons for her departure were unclear.

Josh Orton, the campaign’s deputy director for new media, resigned last week, sources said.

Mr. Orton decided to leave because he disagreed with the campaign’s blogger outreach strategy, sources and friends of Orton said.

Orton’s immediate superior, new media director Joe Rospars, prioritized online organizing over surgical interventions in the blogosphere and the two staffers personalities did not mesh.

Orton was the online and Nevada spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid and worked as a producer for Air America.

"We have hundreds of employees and are bound to have a few instances where, for whatever reason, things don't work out," said Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman.

Earlier this week, ex-Sen. John Edwards's lead media consultant left the campaign, and last month, a top operative in Sen. Hillary Clinton's Iowa state team stepped down.