Obama Said to Consider William Daley for Top White House Post

Would you get a load of this? I've always believed you put your money where your mouth is. Obama's mouth may be talking compromise, but his actions tell us his fondest wish is to convert Washington, DC into a one-party town. And nothing says one-party rule like Chicago. For now, Obama remains intriguingly tone deaf.

President Obama is considering naming William Daley, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive and former U.S. Commerce secretary, to a high-level White House post, possibly as his chief of staff, people familiar with the matter said.

Such a move, which is still under discussion and which White House officials wouldn’t confirm, would bring a Washingtonveteran and someone with strong business ties into the administration as Obama enters the second half of his term. The president is faced with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and is trying to accelerate the U.S. economic recovery while addressing the budget deficit.

Daley, 62, who typically responds to questions, didn’t return two messages seeking comment left on his cell phone yesterday or a phone call to his office and an e-mail sent to him today. White House officials declined to discuss the matter.

“I’m not going to comment on personnel speculation,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbssaid in an e-mail.

As he remakes his staff for the second half of his term, the president also is seeking to address complaints from some executives that the Democratic administration is anti-business. Daley is JPMorgan’s Midwest chairman and the bank’s head of corporate responsibility.

Replacement for Summers

Among the pressing personnel decisions Obama must make is replacing Lawrence Summers as head of the National Economic Council, which could come as early as this week. Gene Sperling, a counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, has emerged as the leading candidate for the post. He doesn’t have strong ties to the business community or Summers’s standing as an economist.

Yale University President Richard Levin and Roger Altman, the founder of Evercore Partners Inc., are under consideration for that post as well.

If chosen to be chief of staff, Daley would replace Pete Rouse, who Obama named to fill the role on an interim basis after Rahm Emanuel resigned on Oct. 1 to pursue a bid for mayor ofChicago.

Rouse has indicated to administration officials that he’s reluctant to serve in that job for the remainder of Obama’s presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter. He also has signaled he would stay as chief of staff if asked by the president, the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

Internal Review

Rouse, a long-time Obama aide, is conducting an internal review that covers personnel, policy and political strategy as the president faces a new political landscape and gears up for his re-election bid less than two years from now. Obama is considering a number of staff changes. Already, senior adviser David Axelrod is expected to leave after the State of the Union speech and former campaign manager David Plouffe will join the administration.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Daley served as an Obama economic adviser. After the election, he was a co- chairman of Obama’s transition team.

Daley, the younger brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, was commerce secretary from January 1997 to June 2000 under former President Bill Clinton. In 2000, he chaired Vice President Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.

He joined JPMorgan Chase in 2004 after serving as president of SBC Communications for more than two years.

Mentoring Emanuel

Daley was a political mentor to Emanuel. The two worked together to get the union-opposedNorth American Free Trade Agreement passed in 1993. Emanuel was then a senior aide to Clinton and Daley was a special counsel to the president.

The youngest of seven children born to the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Eleanor “Sis” Daley, William Daley is part of the most powerful political dynasty in Illinois.

Besides his work as a banker, he serves on several corporate boards, including Boeing Co. andAbbott Laboratories.

The administration has come under fire from the business community, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The nation’s biggest business lobbying group opposed Obama’s health-care and financial-regulatory overhauls and committed $75 million to political ads in the midterm congressional elections, mainly directed against Democrats.

More Optimism

Still, Obama is generating more optimism among corporate executives after a series of actions and overtures, including a deal to extend tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, efforts to boost exports such as a U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement, and a loosening of controls on some technology sales.

Obama met Dec. 15 with 20 company executives in Washington and said afterward he made “good progress” toward establishing closer cooperation between government and business to accelerate the economic recovery. The president has said private companies are crucial to the U.S. climbing out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Obama Said to Consider William Daley for Top White House Post - Bloomberg