“There might not be knock-down-drag-out public fights where activists and senators try to take down particular nominees,” he added, “but if that’s the case, it will have been the threat of those fights that will have made them unnecessary.”
Biden has been performing the delicate act of picking people who would not only be “accepted by all elements of the Democratic Party” but who also stand a snowball’s chance of getting confirmed by a Senate that will be controlled by the GOP if Democrats lose next month’s Georgia runoffs.
There are still many Cabinet positions to be filled and the president-elect is facing a high demand for more diversity but Biden has so far passed over ideologues from both sides of his party.
“They’re putting forward more weather vanes and operatives than ideologues,” said Waleed Shahid of the group Justice Democrats. “The kinds of people Obama appointed who were most ideologically hostile to the left wing of the party are not being appointed this time.”
Shahid noted several people from former President Obama’s first term who were not only moderates but also sometimes seemed to enjoy agitating the left, for example, Obama’s former top economic adviser Larry Summers and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
It appears no warning shots have been fired at Biden from progressive senators who in the end will have a say over who gets confirmed. Some progressives still hope to see a champion appointed to one of the positions Biden will have to fill, but they will not quit fighting to keep people like Rahm Emanuel out.
