But What Does It Mean Immigration Strategy-Wise?

The AP reports:

President Barack Obama is considering naming former Commerce Secretary William Daley to a top White House job, possibly chief of staff, a person familiar with the matter said. The development comes as Obama eyes a broader reorganization of his senior staff heading into the next phase of his presidency.

The move by the President to appoint someone like Daley as his Chief of Staff signals a direction away from progressives, as Chuck Todd of MSNBC points out:

The left is unlikely to embrace him, given his JPMorgan work and the fact that he comes from the Democratic Party’s moderate wing. (“Either we plot a more moderate, centrist course or risk electoral disaster not just in the upcoming midterms but in many elections to come,” he wrote in the Washington Post in Dec. ’09.) We can report that no job offer has been made to Daley, and current interim Chief of Staff Pete Rouse is also being considered to keep the post permanently. But if it’s going to be Daley, we get the feeling any announcement would come quickly; many West Wing staffers who are on pins and needles regarding the reorganization plan are hopeful the president makes a decision quickly, perhaps even this week.

Notice that when media people call a Democrat a “centrist” or a “moderate”, what it’s really meant between the lines is that that person is a conservative Democrat.  It should also be mentioned that he’s on the board of trustees for Third Way, a think-tank that tries to push the Democratic Party in a more conservative direction.

Since White House Chiefs of Staff tend to have a strong influence on setting strategy to move the President’s agenda forward, the person that fills that position will have a major say in how the tone of immigration policy debate is set.  Being that Conservative Democrats were ultimately the ones that killed passage of the DREAM Act in the last congressional session, if the past is any indication of how Conservative Democrats behave, the outlook for immigration policy does not look good at all.

Update: more on William Daley via DailyKos.

Daley is the brother of Chicago mayor Richard Daley, a former commerce secretary, Rahm Emanuel’s mentor, and an investment banker […] he’s also a U.S. Chamber of Commerce insider.   

That’s right, the same Chamber of Commerce that poured millions into supporting conservative candidates during the last midterm election, who coincedentally enough happened to be against comprehensive immigration reform that might lead to stronger labor protections for undocumented workers in any shape or form.

Update # 2: if you’re looking for more hints of what is the worldview of Democrats that tend to lean conservative, Chris Matthews displayed some in his praise of the possibility of William Daley to be named as President’s Obama new Chief of Staff.

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If you recall, Chris Matthews recently showed signs (click here for the video) of being completely sold on the conservative (and deceiving) notion that Democrats “aren’t enforcing our immigration laws” and had somewhat of a difficult time recognizing that our immigration debate is at its core an issue of civil rights.

Update # 3: Chris Hayes, filling in for Rachel Maddow, offers the progressive view point on William Daley.

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