TPM Reader Anon chimes in ...

Those Obama supporters I've spoken to here at Harvard - and we watched the results coming in last night with jubilation - are none too happy about the rumors that Larry Summers is a top pick for Treasury Sec. He was a disaster for Harvard and has no ability to work with people. For an administration coming in not just on a mantra of change but of working together (and *listening* to people - which Summers is just unable to do), this would be very disappointing. The Obama folks have managed the campaign so well - it would be sad to see them now copy Clinton's mistakes because they don't have a real plan for the economy. And this just on Summers's management skills - never mind that he and Rubin are Wall Street cronies who have enjoyed the revolving door between government and lucrative non-government positions, and were responsible for a big part of the deregulation (especially internationally) that led to the current crisis. (Even Jagdish Bhagwati - no radical economist he - blamed a "Wall Street-Treasury complex" for the late 1990s crisis, and by that he meant Rubin and Summers, whom he called out by name.)

No way we should reward these folks. But between the two of them, Rubin can at least work with others; Summers just can't - and Obama needs someone who can.

You can post this comment if you like - but please keep my info. anonymous. I'm small fry here at Harvard and Summers's supporters are a powerful minority and still very angry that we finally got rid of him. (BTW, things are so much better now that he's gone. Totally different tone on campus.)

Another Anon TPM Reader responds ...

Not to turn TPM into an intra-Harvard brawl, but I feel I have to strenuously disagree with Anon's characterization of Summers' rep at Harvard. It's true that Summers was unpopular among the professors of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (or at least, the vocal minority of FAS professors who attend meetings of the entire faculty), but he had strong support among all of the other schools (the Med School, the Law School (which gave us Obama), the Business School (which, um, gave us Bush), etc.), and was adored by the students. His replacement is effectively a figurehead, a stand-in for the powers-that-be at Harvard and especially the collected deans and office of general counsel. While this is great for FAS professors, who don't like it when their status quo is messed with, it has resulted in a university that ignores and stifles its students and sees its main purpose to be growing and protecting its endowment. Larry Summers, for all his pig-headness, really did care about and respond to students and had a strong, forward-looking, and not endowment-obsessed vision for the University.