Bill Daley's failure to achieve negotiating successes has intensified Democratic criticism. Trouble on Daley's watch

Bill Daley is off to a very rocky start.

The 63-year-old scion of Chicago political royalty was brought in as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff to provide fresh blood, corporate-world experience and adult supervision to a young, free-wheeling White House staff. But critics inside and outside the West Wing are questioning whether he is the tough, competent manager needed to shake up the operation and propel Obama into the 2012 election year.


To some extent, Daley has been a victim of the increasingly difficult political circumstances Obama has had to confront this year. But he’s also been hampered, paradoxically, by his own inexperience, and particularly by the fact that he lacks the deep Capitol Hill connections of his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel.

As a banker and former secretary of commerce, Daley’s ability to soothe relations with Republicans was a major justification for bringing him from Chicago — much to the disgust of many Democrats who wanted Obama to take a more combative approach after the 2010 elections. But Daley’s failure to achieve any negotiating successes has only intensified the chorus of criticism from Democrats that Obama is too willing to compromise.

Interviews with two dozen current and former White House staffers and congressional aides paint the picture of Daley as a steady, seasoned political operative struggling to find his footing in one of the most hostile environments anyone in his job has ever had to face.

“Is there a level of unhappiness with Bill around the White House? Yeah,” said a person close to Obama who spoke on condition of anonymity, like almost all other insiders interviewed for this story.

“You do what you have to do to streamline the organization, cutting meetings from 20 people to five. But a lot of people are pissed,” the person added. “You can’t replicate Rahm, he was a once-in-a-lifetime guy, for good and bad. Daley is much more of an executive and former member of the cabinet. … When it comes to dealing with the Hill, well, they just don’t know Bill.”

And what they see they don’t like. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is reportedly so miffed at being kept out of the loop by Daley that he personally called Obama to complain, according to a person briefed on the exchange.

Many of these problems predate Daley’s arrival last January. But any chief of staff — especially a Washington outsider — is a natural target at a time when the White House is reeling from a staggering series of political and economic setbacks, ranging from the loss of the nation’s AAA credit rating to Obama’s own swoon in the polls, which now have him cratering in the high 30- to low 40-percent approval.

Increasingly, Daley is being called out for the stumbles on his watch — small (restricting physical access to his office), medium (ticking off congressional leadership by dispatching subordinates to deliver bad news) and large (miscalculating House Speaker John Boehner’s capacity to reach a “grand bargain” on the debt ceiling).

But the grumbling about Daley has intensified in the wake of a seemingly insignificant political sideshow - his mistaken assumption that Boehner had given him tacit approval of Obama’s request for a Sept. 7 jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. He hadn’t. And Daley and Obama were forced into an embarrassing about-face.

There’s also a primal scream aspect to the criticism, rooted in deep concerns among many Democrats about 2012, and, perhaps, the desire to find someone other than the man at the top of the ticket to blame.

“Bill Clinton fired many people in 1994 and took a lot of heat for it. Reagan fired most of his campaign staff in 1980. Republicans historically fired their own speaker, Newt Gingrich,” wrote James Carville in a widely read open letter to Obama on CNN’s website.

“For God’s sake, why are we still looking at the same political and economic advisers that got us into this mess? It’s not working. Furthermore, it’s not going to work with the same team, the same strategy and the same excuses. I know economic analysts are smart — some work 17-hour days. It’s time to show them the exit. Wake up — show us you are doing something.”

When asked if he was referring specifically to Daley, Carville told POLITICO, “I recuse myself. Bill’s an old friend.”

The irony, of course, is that Daley is doing what his boss wants. He takes his role of gatekeeper seriously, and has restricted the torrent of paper and people into the Oval Office. The decision to downsize and deprioritize Obama’s legislative affairs team was made before Daley ever entered the building on a blueprint from interim chief of staff Pete Rouse.

Daley, who refused to comment for this story, is reportedly unrepentant about his tenure, telling associates he’s not bothered by any griping down the chain of command or from the Hill, which he considers as much a part of job as turning on the lights in the morning. A few months ago, he also predicted that the first wave of negative stories about him would start popping sometime after the “shitty” summer, according to an administration official.

“Sometimes people take out their frustrations on POTUS,” said a senior administration official. “Sometimes — hopefully — they take it out on the chief of staff instead. He’s always going to be the top target.”

David Plouffe, Obama’s senior adviser and 2008 campaign manager, said the president has “full confidence” in his chief of staff and blames the grousing on factors beyond Daley’s control: The economy, a barrage of foreign policy crises, a disorganized and hostile Republican House majority.

“I think he’s done a very good job. Obviously, we’re going through challenging times,” Plouffe told POLITICO. “It’s been a tough year … and it’s only natural there’s turbulence when the waters aren’t entirely placid. But he’s a very savvy guy, and he’s a very good guy, a solid guy.”

But Daley, an amiable schmoozer who had a dealmaker’s reputation during his years as Bill Clinton’s commerce secretary, has clearly had trouble maneuvering in a toxic, divided 2011 Washington that is even more dysfunctional than the divided Washington he left in 2000.

No incident illustrated Daley’s dilemma better than the kerfuffle over Obama’s jobs speech. Daley, according to sources in both camps, simply assumed that Boehner and company would grant the president’s request as a matter of course, and that organizers of the POLITICO/NBC News debate would simply move their event an hour back — and garner a larger lead-in audience for good measure.

When Daley called Boehner at around 10 a.m. on Aug. 31 to inform him of the president’s plans — not to ask for his permission — Boehner was polite but noncommittal and said he would get back in touch.

After a few hours of tense waiting, the speaker released a letter objecting to the timing, prompting a second call from Daley to Boehner, who said he was facing opposition to the address in his ranks and a possible floor vote on the speech, according to a congressional source.

An aggravated Daley summoned Plouffe and several other senior staff to his office and advised them to move the speech to avoid “subjecting the president and the American people to this spectacle for three or four more days,” according to a person in attendance. Then he called Boehner’s chief of staff to deliver the news — and express his own pique.

In an effort to build bridges with unpredictable House Republicans, he has alienated some congressional Democrats who now hold him accountable, in part, for the debt-ceiling debacle as well as the bungled negotiations on the jobs speech.

More surprising is in-house griping, which has spilled out of the typically locked-down West Wing into the gossip mills of Democratic lobbying shops and think tanks.

Daley’s brisk, officious, closed-door corporate style has soured some White House staffers who think he’s pinching Obama’s access to his own people, depriving him of a wider variety of opinions at a time when coming up with creative solutions to the country’s economic malaise — and the president’s political slump — are at a premium.

While Daley has brought a new level of efficiency to the day-to-day operations of a White House buffeted by two years of Emanuel’s creative chaos, he’s remains an outsider to many of the campaign veterans who make up the core of Obama’s staff.

Nor has he gone out of his way to send come-hither messages to the faithful: The door to his expansive West Wing office is almost always closed; Emanuel’s was always open — even if staffers were often afraid to cross the threshold.

“He’s not a fan favorite,” added a former White House staffer who said Daley’s been more intent “on controlling the outflow and the inflow from the Oval” than energizing a staff besieged by bad news and the late 2010 organizational shakeup.

The flashpoint of the staff discontent seems petty enough. Soon after taking over, Daley’s decision to eliminate the big 8:30 a.m. daily meeting Emanuel convened after the 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting. Under the new chief, it has been cut to a Friday meeting in which questions to Daley are carefully screened.

To Plouffe and Obama, the decision was a no-brainer - the 8:30 meetings seemed like formless gabfests that delayed top aides from issuing marching orders to their own teams.

To the middle ranks who make the building run, however, it was a vital chance to run ideas by their bosses and get face time with top-level staffers outside of their direct chain of command.

“He’s a bit cold and unapproachable and people have taken notice,” said a former Obama staffer.

“He brought a whole different way of doing things to the White House. … There were a lot more memos and prep work, more than a lot of people were used to. And in doing so, he narrowed the universe of people involved in substantive discussion. And that ruffled a lot of feathers,” the aide added.

“There’s a little too much structure. He’s much more structured about meetings and briefings and timelines. With that level of focus, it can be harder to break in with a changing situation. Access is much more guarded. There are more boxes to check to talk to Daley about something and that causes some annoyance.”

To be fair, Emanuel, who now terrifies and exhausts staffers in the Chicago mayor’s office, was nobody’s idea of a prototypical chief of staff, offering a flurry of ideas and criticisms, often absent any plan to actually implement them.

And he was no LBJ when it came to negotiating either, often willing to cut quick deals with conservative Democrats or Republicans rather than risk adverse consequences. That, in turn, put him at odds with many of his own party’s tougher bargainers, especially then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), a longtime ally who clashed with him repeatedly during Obama’s first two years in office.

But no one ever accused Emanuel of being out of touch, even when he was on the warpath. He kept in constant contact with Hill movers and shakers, often reaching into the lower reaches of Senate and House offices to garner intel.

Daley’s style is considerably more hands-off, people who work with him say, leaving much of the outreach to his able legislative affairs director Rob Nabors, Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling and budget chief Jack Lew, who all have decades of Hill experience.

Daley “has no understanding of the [congressional] process, and he doesn’t want to understand the process,” said a senior Democratic aide. “The entire Senate Democratic Caucus has a problem with Daley.”

Ealier this month, Daley dropped into Reid’s office to press for passage of free trade agreements with Colombia and South Korea. The issue is a central one for Daley, a former J.P. MorganChase executive who was hired, in part, to improve the administration’s abysmal relationship with business leaders.

The chat was uncomfortable, according to a person familiar with the exchange. Apparently Daley didn’t consider — or didn’t care — that Reid has been largely antagonistic to free trade agreement during his four decades on the Hill.

Senate leadership sources also accuse White House officials of cutting them out of the loop during “grand bargain” discussions during the debt-ceiling fight. Some were also irked by reports that Daley sought to cut his own separate deal with Boehner during last spring’s budget talks.

Nor did the White House consult with their Democratic congressional counterparts on Obama’s new jobs bill, and now complain that Democrats haven’t fully embraced it.

When it came time to brief Reid and other Democratic leaders, a mission that Daley was entrusted with, Sperling got on the phone instead. Reid was incensed that he had already briefed the White House press corps.

Democratic aides also said that Daley “has cut out” Rouse, a former top Senate aide who is personally close to Reid and gave leadership valuable insight into administration strategy and objectives.

Still, all isn’t lost. Reid and Daley often bump into each other at the Ritz-Carlton, where each has an apartment, and chat amiably. Earlier this week, they chatted on the phone, a person close to Obama said.

Reid’s No. 2, Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, who knows Daley and Emanuel well, said there’s room for both management styles.

“Rahm Emanuel was not only a creature of the House, he knew many of the senators from campaigns and from their service in the House,” Durbin said. “Bill Daley does not have that depth of relationships coming in. But I think he’s making up for it very quickly.”

When POLITICO asked Durbin whether he missed Emanuel, he quipped, “No, I’m glad he’s in Chicago doing that job — he’s a great mayor.”