A change in White House chief of staff often marks the beginning of a new phase in a presidency, and that’s certainly true for Barack Obama. His choice of former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley comes as Obama must confront newly emboldened congressional Republicans and gear up for his own reelection campaign in 2012.
For Daley, it is a daunting task, even for someone born and raised in politics who cut his teeth in a Clinton White House facing a divided Washington. And before he even gets to those long-term problems he has some tasks he will need to confront immediately.
Win over the White House staff
When Daley reports to work for the first time in the West Wing, he will be the lone outsider in a tightknit group that’s already unnerved by the sudden power shift. Many White House staffers worked on Obama’s presidential campaign, were familiar with interim chief of staff Pete Rouse and hardly know Daley, who isn’t close to the president, either.
At the same time, Daley will have a mandate from Obama and possibly a blueprint for staff restructuring from Rouse, who has spent considerable time studying how the White House operates and should function over the next two years. (See: Daley takes Obama back to the future)
Daley will make some changes to the current staff and bring in his own people, sources say, including David Lane, who served as his chief of staff when he was in the Clinton Cabinet.
That’s already stirring anxiety in the West Wing. One White House staffer whose trust Daley will need to gain immediately is Rouse, the president’s senior adviser, who was equivocating over the chief of staff job and then saw Obama choose Daley.
“He’ll want to weigh in on the press secretary decision. He’ll want to look at the structure and the team and have some say about how things get structured,” said one Democrat close to the White House.
Martha Kumar, a Towson University political scientist who studies the operations of the White House, said Daley is the right person for this particular time in the Obama presidency, and the staff will understand that.
“They have enacted a great deal of policy, and now it is time to implement their initiatives. Once the staff realizes Daley has the experiences and relationships to bring about their goals, they will line up with him. He has a broad reach outside the White House and within the communities the president needs to reach. He will bring long-range planning to a White House where it was in short supply.”
But former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), whom Rouse consulted several times as he worked on staff restructuring, said Daley needs to worry less about winning over White House staffers than those staffers need to worry about winning over him. (See: Liberals scoff at Daley's new job)
“One of the things I was concerned about was the White House was too insular and too filled with people who’d been involved with the campaign,” Graham said. “They work for him now. Since he’s the boss, they have more the responsibility of selling themselves to him than he does selling Bill Daley to the staff.”
Another major question left unanswered by Daley’s arrival: What becomes of senior adviser and longtime Obama friend Valerie Jarrett? (See: Obama introduces new chief of staff)
Jarrett is not expected to leave the White House, but there’s no avoiding the fact that Daley will, to some extent or another, be taking over her portfolio managing Obama’s relationship with the business community. Many in the business world may welcome that change, but Daley will need to figure out how to rearrange Jarrett’s responsibilities in a way that doesn’t seem like a snub and doesn’t lead to a recurrence of the stories about tensions between Jarrett and the previous chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.
Calm the liberals
The first reports about the Daley pick provoked an outcry from many liberal groups, who are already angry over being marginalized by Emanuel. Daley will have to spend some time clarifying his views on things like health care reform (he was against the public option) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (he opposed it) as well as his work on the North American Free Trade Agreement during the Clinton administration.
“As a pragmatic person he understands how important the base is to a reelection,” said a Democrat close to the White House. “I think there will be an attempt to shift the dynamic so that it’s more positive.”
Chris Lehane, who worked under Daley when he was chairman of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, pointed out that it was at Daley’s urging that Gore became a populist candidate. “Remember ‘People, not the powerful?’” Lehane said.
“And at the end of the day, while he knows Wall Street and K Street, he is still a Daley, which means he ‘gets’ Main Street,” added Lehane, who says “Obama is getting a bare-knuckled manager — and by that I mean he is the Bill Belichick of chiefs of staff.”
Daley has already picked up some unexpected and highly influential allies in the liberal camp, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Dean and Reich could do a lot to tamp down liberal heartburn over Daley’s appointment.
Make the most of his business background
Obama went out of his way Thursday during his East Room announcement to describe Daley’s business experience. “He’s led major corporations,” the president said. “He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy. “
What Obama did not mention was the seven years Daley has spent as a top official of JPMorgan Chase. Given the Obama administration’s past antipathy toward the big banks — and the level of public outrage at them — this could prove embarrassing, especially with the inevitable reports on Daley’s compensation. The New York Times got the ball rolling on this line of reporting, when it quoted a person with knowledge of his compensation as saying Daley has made between $3 million and $5 million a year from JPMorgan Chase, while also picking up handsome checks for board service at Boeing, Abbott Laboratories and other companies.
But from the White House’s viewpoint, Daley’s banking ties and his experience in the corporate world are basically just what it’s been looking for in its effort to repair ties with the business community.
“His business background will, I think, be of assistance to the president as he reaches out to that community,” said Graham.
Build a relationship with Obama
Despite their Chicago connection, Obama and Daley are not longtime allies. Daley broke his deep ties with the Clintons to support Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary, but the two men are not particularly close. They operated mostly in separate circles in Chicago politics, although Daley is close to Obama allies Jarrett, Emanuel and outgoing senior adviser David Axelrod.
Before Thursday’s announcement, Obama and Daley spoke several times on the phone about the job. They met in person on Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office, although Obama didn’t offer Daley the job at the time and only informed his aides of his decision at a 10:30 a.m. staff meeting Thursday, just four hours before his East Room announcement. Part of the reason Obama waited until this week to announce his decision was to get more familiar with Daley.
“They’ll have to figure out what their relationship is going to be, in terms of how they deal with each other,” said a Democrat close to the White House.
Obama and Daley have a bit of a head start because Daley worked on the president’s transition. And Obama paid homage to Daley’s political pedigree in his remarks Thursday, joking about his “smidgen of awareness of how our system of government and politics works.”
“You might say it is a genetic trait,” Obama quipped.
Deal with Congress
Both of Daley’s predecessors, Emanuel and Rouse, worked on Capitol Hill and had close connections with Democrats but not particularly good ones with Republicans. As chief of staff in a White House with a scaled-back legislative agenda, Daley won’t have to interact with Congress as much as his predecessors did, but he’ll still need to mend some fences.
In his previous life in the Clinton administration, Daley’s closest interaction with Congress was when he helped pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. Though that won’t stand him in good stead with many Democrats, who still are unhappy with the deal, it should help him with free-trade Republicans. And in fact, GOP leaders reacted enthusiastically to his selection.
“I, frankly, think it’s kind of a hopeful sign,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). “He has a business background. You know, we used to, I used to say the last two years — I don’t know whether it’s technically true or not — but that there was nobody down at the White House who had ever even run a lemonade stand. You know, they were all college professors … former elected officials. This is a guy who’s actually been out in the private sector, been a part of business.”
And while Daley hasn’t been much seen on Capitol Hill since 2000, he still goes back with many members.
“In his business and political activity, my guess is that Bill knew more than 100 current House Democrats and has maintained contact with them,” said Jim Jaffe, a former spokesman for the late Rep. Dan Rostenkowski of Illinois.
And, Jaffe added, “the very qualities that offend some liberals about him will make it easier for him to get along with [John] Boehner and the Republicans.”
Richard E. Cohen contributed to this report.
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