Pres. Obama Selects William Daley As Next Chief Of Staff

The White House is on the verge of announcing that former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley will be chosen to serve as President Obama's next chief of staff, Politico reported on Thursday.

"This is just about done," a White House insider told Politico's Mike Allen. "Staff is being deferential to Pete [Rouse], but he is totally on board with this plan and is looking forward to getting his old office back."

The Hill reports that the potential chief of staff pick was at the White House recently, furthering speculation that an official arrangement would be announced sometime soon.

Daley visited the White House on Wednesday for a meeting with President Obama, according to an administration official.

Pete Rouse temporarily assumed the chief of staff role when Rahm Emanuel left the administration to launch a campaign for Chicago mayor. Though Rouse signed on as an interim replacement, some believed he would stay on board, despite a number of other candidates on the short list.

Daley, currently the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase and brother of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, raised some eyebrows this week when prior comments were uncovered suggesting he was an opponent of two landmark Obama administration initiatives -- health care reform and consumer protection.

"[Democrats] miscalculated on health care," Daley once told The New York Times in an interview. "The election of '08 sent a message that after 30 years of center-right governing, we had moved to center left -- not left."

As for Obama's creation of a consumer protection agency, Daley appeared equally resistant. The Wall Street Journal reported last year:

But when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called a top J.P. Morgan executive to ask for the bank's support in creating a new consumer-protection agency, the executive--former Commerce Secretary William Daley--said no, according to people familiar with the conversation. His boss believed that sufficient consumer safeguards were already on the books.

While such views are likely to put him in the bad graces of some on the left, former DNC chairman Howard Dean recently painted the potential shakeup as a positive development. HuffPost's Sam Stein reported Wednesday:

Dean said that his ascendancy to the chief of staff role would be a positive development, in the process giving Daley the type of progressive validater that he has so far lacked.

"I don't agree with [him] on a lot of stuff politically, but I do think -- A, he is a grownup and B, he gets that you don't treat people like you know everything and they don't," said Dean. "If Bill Daley becomes the chief of staff, that is going to be a huge plus because he is outside of Washington, he sees things the way people outside Washington do. It is not a left or right issue."