Chuck Todd on the breaking news.
It's official POTUS has asked Bill Daley to be CoS and he's accepted. Pete Rouse will become senior counselor to POTUS
2 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®
Another Chicago insider joins the Obama team at the White House. Look for Obama's course to be changed, not toward the base as we approach the 2012 election, but further toward the center.
A reminder that Bill Daley comes most recently from JP Morgan Chase. He's a Wall Street insider. It appears now that Obama is officially wedding his administration with the big banks.
And what's even stranger, he's choosing as his right-hand man someone who has criticized his signature legislative accomplishments. What could possibly go wrong?
I'll update as more news surfaces.
Update:
In a 2009 OpEd for the Washington Post, Daley argues for Democrats to plot a more moderate course going forward. He begins:
The announcement by Alabama Rep. Parker Griffith that he is switching to the Republican Party is just the latest warning sign that the Democratic Party -- my lifelong political home -- has a critical decision to make: Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come.
...
All that is required for the Democratic Party to recover its political footing is to acknowledge that the agenda of the party's most liberal supporters has not won the support of a majority of Americans -- and, based on that recognition, to steer a more moderate course on the key issues of the day, from health care to the economy to the environment to Afghanistan.
These are the words of the president's new COS. Disappointing, to say the least.
Update #2:
For those who haven't seen it, Ezra Klein does a brilliant job of dissecting Daley's criticism of Obama's Health Care Reform Law.
The problem isn't Daley's take on health-care reform, which I disagree with, but which is certainly legitimate. It's his take on the meta-politics of health-care reform, and perhaps politics itself.
The health-care law the president signed was modeled off of the health-care law the Republican governor of Massachusetts had signed, which was in turn modeled off of the health-care law the Republicans in Congress had proposed in 1993. That's "left"? And meanwhile, Daley thinks the country had moved substantially leftward over that period -- "after 30 years of center-right governing, we had moved to center left" -- but that even a compromise bill based on Republican ideas was too far left for the country, which would imply that the administration he served in the early-'90s, which pushed a more ambitious health-care bill when the country was further to the right, bordered on communist.
IMHO, the problem with the HCR law wasn't that it was too liberal. The reason it was widely panned as unsuccessful was precisely because it was too establishment - it solidified the insurance companies as the backbone of our health delivery system, making many voters very angry. This myth that HCR was too liberal is a lie that refuses to die.
Update #3:
For those interested, here's a short bio of William Daley:
William M. Daley serves as Senior Executive of Midwest Region and has been Chairman of Midwest Region of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. since May 2004 and serves on its Executive Committee and its International Advisory Council. Mr. Daley joined J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., after serving as the President of SBC Communications Inc. from December 2001 to May 2004. He also serves as Director at Local Initiatives Support Corporation since January 2007. Previously, he served as U.S. Secretary of commerce under President Clinton from January 1997 to July 2000. As special counsel to President Clinton in 1993, he coordinated the successful campaign to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. He also coordinated the effort for permanent Normal Trade Relations with China as Chairman of the 2000 presidential election campaign of Vice President Al Gore. Earlier in his career, he was a partner at Mayer, Brown & Platt; President and Chief Operating Officer of Amalgamated Bank of Chicago; and a lawyer at Daley & George Ltd. Mr. Daley served as Vice Chairman of Evercore Capital Partners LP, a private equity investment firm, from January to November 2001. He was Chairman, Vice President of Albert Gore's 2000 presidential election campaign from June to December 2000; Secretary of Commerce from January 1997 to June 2000. He has been a Director of Boston Properties Inc. since May 7, 2003 and is the Chairman of the Nominating and Corporate Governance and a Member of the Audit Committee. He has been a Director of Abbott Laboratories since October 8, 2004. Mr. Daley serves as a Director of US-China Business Council, The Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Loyola University and The Committee on US-China Foreign Relations. He also sits on the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as a Director of Merck & Co. Inc. since 2002. He received a BA from Loyola University in Chicago and an LLB from John Marshall Law School.
Update #4:
Remember this quaint promise?
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
An end to the “revolving door”
Transition team co-chair John Podesta characterized the policy as "the strictest ethics rules ever applied."
How many times has William Daley walked across the threshold that separates business and government? The guy must have his own gold plated door by now, no?