When Barack Obama took a beating in the midterms, he brought William Daley into the White House from Chicago as his new chief of staff at the beginning of the new year with two missions. First, improve relations with Wall Street and the business community by putting a happy face on Obama’s economic policies. Second, reset relationships within the White House after Rahm Emanuel’s departure to run for Mayor of Chicago. Obama needed to reverse the impression that he had lost the rudder on his administration after just two years in office.
Looks like it’s time for Plan C:
William M. Daley was hired to help resuscitate Barack Obama’s presidency after deep Democratic losses in 2010. Ten months into his tenure as chief of staff, Mr. Daley’s core responsibilities are shifting, following White House missteps in the debt-ceiling fight and in its relations with Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
On Monday, Mr. Daley turned over day-to-day management of the West Wing to Pete Rouse, a veteran aide to President Obama, according to several people familiar with the matter. It is unusual for a White House chief of staff to relinquish part of the job. …
The new set-up effectively makes Mr. Rouse the president’s inside manager and Mr. Daley his ambassador, roles that appear to better suit both men’s talents. Mr. Rouse served as interim chief of staff before Mr. Daley arrived, and his White House bio boasts he is “known as the ‘101st Senator’ ” for his extensive knowledge of Congress.
If the name Pete Rouse sounds familiar, it should. When Emanuel left, Obama tapped Rouse as his interim CoS, and sources reported at the time that Rouse improved internal relations almost immediately. He has plenty of connections on Capitol Hill and used them to help Obama cut a deal with Republicans on tax rates and jobless benefits at the end of the year, as well as extend a budgetless federal government with a compromise continuing resolution that punted FY2011 to the incoming Republican House majority.
Daley’s star began to dim during the debt-ceiling negotiations, but apparently the final straw was the botched effort to schedule the September speech to a joint session of Congress:
The limits of Mr. Daley’s relationship with Mr. Boehner spilled into view in September, when the chief of staff thought he had secured a date for Mr. Obama to address a joint session of Congress. Mr. Boehner publicly rejected the White House’s request because it conflicted with a GOP presidential primary debate. Mr. Obama vented to his staff, asking how they didn’t foresee that outcome.
Officially, Daley will manage the outside relationships, presumably with business and Wall Street, but he’s not going to find much success there, not with Obama’s class-warfare rhetoric in full throat at the moment. The Wall Street Journal notes dryly that Obama’s soak-the-rich tax policy has “complicated that effort,” and stoking the Occupy movement won’t make it any easier. Plus, Daley’s credibility as a power inside this administration will evaporate. Although Wall Street will still undoubtedly court Daley to keep in touch with the White House in some fashion, it’s hard to believe that the investment sector will take Daley all that seriously after this humiliating vote of no-confidence in his performance so far.
Daley will apparently keep the title of chief of staff in the new shake-up, but the real authority and influence will shift back to Rouse. The day-to-day management of the West Wing is the primary focus of any chief of staff, and the primary source of his power. I doubt there will be anyone inside or outside the Beltway that won’t recognize what happened yesterday as a significant demotion and marginalization of Bill Daley.
Food for thought: Would this move have taken place if Daley’s brother Richard was still running the Chicago Machine?
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