Every president ends up having a few appointments he has to withdraw after controversy erupts. Sometimes it's because the nominee wrote something shocking years before, or because she had a nanny she didn't pay Social Security taxes on; sometimes it's because he was a drunk. And sometimes it's because the president's own party base doesn't like the pick. That's what happened when George W. Bush tried to name his friend Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. But it had only happened a couple of times to Barack Obama, most notably in the case of Larry Summers, whom he wanted to appoint as chairman of the Federal Reserve; he eventually gave in to an intense campaign to appoint Janet Yellen instead.
The relative lack of retreats on appointments due to pressure from the Democratic base can be explained by two factors: first, the left has been reasonably satisfied with most (though not all) of Obama's appointments to key positions, and second-and more importantly-the left hasn't been able to organize the necessary pressure to force Obama to change course even when they were unhappy with one of his picks. But yesterday they scored a pretty significant win:
Antonio Weiss, a senior investment banker at Lazard, has withdrawn his name from consideration to be a high-ranking Treasury Department official, but will serve as a counselor to the secretary of the Treasury, Jacob J. Lew, according to the White House.
Mr. Weiss, nominated to be under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, had run into a buzz saw of opposition, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who opposed a Wall Street pick for the key post.
Don't weep for Weiss; that "counselor" position could be quite influential. But this is still an important victory for liberal Democrats. And the reason it happened basically comes down to Elizabeth Warren.
If you aren't immersed in the world of liberal activists, you may not appreciate just how much attention, admiration, and outright worship Warren gets there. She has become the focus of an extraordinary amount of strategizing and organizing on the left, so when she declared that she was going to fight Weiss' nomination, the left picked up the ball and ran with it. For instance, the liberal group Credo Action got 163,000 signatures on a petition to oppose Weiss. But look at the petition: The headline on the page reads, "Stand with Elizabeth Warren: No Wall Street bankers running Treasury," and features a picture of the Massachusetts senator. Or check out the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the leading groups seeking to elect liberal Democrats and push the Obama administration to the left. On PCCC's home page, Warren's name appears eight times; its blog has posts with such titles as, "How to Win Like Elizabeth Warren" and "PCCC and Allies Amplify Elizabeth Warren's Message." Talk to a liberal activist about what progressives ought to be doing, and you'll only have to wait about 10 seconds before Warren's name comes up.
So are Warren's influence and the left's ability to pressure the Obama administration rising in tandem? It's possible. In the past there have been plenty of times when liberals tried and failed to get media coverage for their objections to something the Obama administration was doing, but having a figure like Warren leading their charge makes attention from the press much more likely. Reporters find her to be an interesting character, and they're always more likely to explore a story that can be framed as a conflict between individual antagonists. "Obama vs. Warren" is a far more compelling story to journalists than "Obama vs. disparate collection of activists and a few senators you've barely heard of." The more press coverage there is of an issue like the Weiss nomination, the more pressure the White House feels.
There's a danger, however, in liberals relying too much on Warren to lead them into battle against the administration. She has her own agenda, and there may well be times when liberal activists want to push the White House to do something, but Warren just isn't interested. There will also come a point where the tantalizing prospect of her running for president is no longer an issue, and that could diminish the attention she can get. On the other hand, if she is not just a media star, but a leader with an army behind her-one that can be activated quickly and has practice mobilizing-then there could be more occasions like the Weiss nomination, in which she and the left get their way in a conflict with the White House.
