Obama has announced his new chief of staff to steer the White House ahead of his reelection bid next year. On Thursday, Obama named William Daley, a top financial executive and former commerce secretary in the Clinton administration.
Daley replaces Rahm Emanuel, who resigned last year to run for mayor of Chicago. Daley himself is the brother of Chicago’s current mayor, Richard Daley. The news media has widely described the appointment as an attempt to mend Obama’s supposed frayed ties to Wall Street. Bill Daley served as commerce secretary under President Clinton and played a key role in orchestrating the North American Free Trade Agreement. He’s the Midwest chair of JPMorgan Chase, a board member of the pharmaceutical giant Merck, and former head of telecommunications giant SBC, where he lobbied heavily for deregulation of the phone industry.
Daley’s appointment has raised eyebrows, in part over his apparent opposition to two of President Obama’s biggest domestic initiatives so far. As a JPMorgan executive, Daley rejected the administration’s request to publicly support establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency in the overhaul of financial regulation. And in an interview with the New York Times last year, Daley criticized the administration’s top domestic policy achievement: healthcare reform. Daley said, “They miscalculated on health care. The election of ’08 sent a message that after 30 years of center-right governing, we had moved to center left—not left.”
In another move expected to please Wall Street, President Obama today will reportedly name Gene Sperling to head the National Economic Council, replacing Lawrence Summers. Sperling served in the same post under President Bill Clinton. In 2008, he earned nearly $900,000 at Goldman Sachs and an additional $158,000 in speaking fees.
These two have deep ties to the business industry, not only working for JPMorgan, but also serving on the boards of companies like Boeing, Merck, Abbott Labs, so deep ties there. A big political insider, working as a fixer for President Clinton, commerce secretary, pushing NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), working for Al Gore’s campaign in 2000 again. And then deep ties to the Chicago world, which Obama also knows very well, as the brother of outgoing mayor Richard Daley. So he brings all those different experiences, the combination of which Obama really wanted in his White House going forward. But it does feel like the Clinton era now is back with a vengeance, and perhaps not in the best way.
– from democracynow.org