Daily Office: Matins
Back to ’94
Friday, 7 January 2011
Matt Bai argues that the appointment of William Daley as White House Chief of Staff, while certainly a confirmation of the Administration’s centrist sympathies, also signals a shift from low deal-making to high politicking
In the same way, Mr. Sperling, unlike the less-than-diplomatic Mr. Summers, is known to be politically sophisticated, a policy nerd with long experience as an adviser to Democratic politicians going back to Mario M. Cuomo. His advice to the president will be informed not just by economic theory but also by a sense of what can sway voters and how.
What these appointments suggest is that Mr. Obama is now readying himself for an extended public campaign — or, rather, for two of them. The first begins now, as the president tries to recast himself as a reformer beholden to neither party, a grownup parrying the partisan thrusts of pettier adversaries.
The second will kick in soon enough, as Mr. Obama looks toward 2012 in hopes of becoming only the second Democratic president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to be elected twice. The other, of course, was Mr. Clinton
We hope that more liberal supporters of the Democratic Party will, instead of carping as they did through the Nineties, find a more constructive outlet for their energies than complaining that the President has betrayed them.