STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 21 August 2013

[Demeter]

31. Summers, Yellen allies wage behind-the-scenes effort to win Federal Reserve nod

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/summers-yellen-allies-wage-behind-the-scenes-effort-to-win-federal-reserve-nod/2013/08/20/5d7a3dfa-09a2-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html?hpid=z1

Lawrence H. Summers, one of the top candidates to lead the Federal Reserve, was being beaten up, and his friends from his White House years wanted to help him. So earlier this month, recently departed Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner and other former Obama administration officials joined Summers for a private strategy call, according to people familiar with the discussion. The old colleagues compared notes on what reporters were asking about Summers, who was under a steady assault from liberals who consider him as soft on regulating banks, and mapped out how they might respond. President Obama’s long-term advisers have been working to help Summers in what has become the hottest political campaign of 2013: the race to succeed Ben S. Bernanke as Fed chairman.

Rarely has the appointment of a new Fed chairman been accompanied by so much commotion, penetrating even the political dead zone of mid-August. “I wouldn’t want Larry Summers to mow my yard,” Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) told an audience in his state this week, becoming the first Republican to announce that he would oppose a nomination of the former Treasury secretary.



...Logs showed that Yellen visited the White House only once over the past 2 1/2 years, compared with 15 times by Summers. (The most recent months have not been updated.)...

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