Daniel Gross takes note of what, according to Brad DeLong is President Obama’s greatest “unforced error”, the failure to nominate new candidates for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve:
Democratic partisans are disappointed that Obama doesn’t get agitated and make obstructionists pay a price. But the president bears plenty of responsibility. While you can blame the other party for not cooperating, the ultimate failure to fill key posts in important agencies is its own goal, an unforced error, a self-inflicted wound. You can’t have nomination fights if you don’t nominate people in the first place. The Senate has confirmed a lower percentage of nominees for judgeships than it has for prior presidents. But Obama has also attempted to fill a smaller percentage of openings than his predecessors. It doesn’t always require an act of obstruction to keep a government post open.
I think there’s also a more subtle issue: too many academics who are tenured professors at prestige universities. I’m thinking of Larry Summers and Austan Goolsbee, to name two. Given the choice between giving up their tenured posts at Harvard and the University of Chicago (something that departmental and/or university rules required after the elapse of a certain period of time) or remain as part of the administration’s economic team they elected to return to their tenured posts.
I think that’s far more likely to be true if you nominate people tenured at the most prestigious institutions. There are only so many tenured posts in those institutions and they’re understandably reluctant to abandon them forever for what is inevitably a temporary gig.
It takes time to make a team from a collection of individuals, especially when you’re dealing with people who aren’t exactly team players to start out with. It’s darned hard for that team to take shape when the roster keeps changing.
