美联储主席提名之争：怎样捍卫萨默斯

    他是潜在总统提名候选人中的恶灵弗莱迪吗？（好莱坞电影中的变态恶魔杀手，制造噩梦杀死他人——译注）自由派人士、女权主义者以及他蔑视的老对手们原本以为，他们已经摧毁了拉里•萨默斯出任美联储（Federal Reserve）主席的企图。但他又回来了，在女性执掌美国货币供应大权的梦境中徘徊不去。

    白宫消息灵通人士告诉《华盛顿邮报》（Washington Post）称，萨默斯仍有希望接替即将离任的本•伯南克——甚至还有人表示，他在总统提名的候选人中高居榜首。如果萨默斯获得提名，批评人士会感到震惊。这些人是构成奥巴马自由派基础的核心，他们一直推举的是美联储副主席詹尼特•耶伦。而且，还不只是自由派活动人士：根据路透社（Reuters）在经济学家中进行的一项谁应成为下届美联储主席的调查，耶伦轻松击败萨默斯。

    《华盛顿邮报》等表示，萨默斯仍在候选名单中，很大程度上是由于他和美国总统奥巴马关系密切，以及他作为经济顾问，曾经指引茫然的新政府度过了一场大衰退早期的黑暗时光。萨默斯信奉在困难时期大胆实行大规模的政府措施。“刺激措施的规模是不是过大？”有一次他问我说，“这就像是问我，我会不会减肥减过头。”

    奥巴马还欠萨默斯关键的政治分。作为美国国家经济委员会（National Economic Council）主任，萨默斯大力支持拯救美国汽车业的举措。按他去年在竞选日的原话，这项决定让“俄亥俄州和密歇根州的经济大为不同”，也让共和党候选人米特•罗姆尼在这两个州竞选失利。

    如果萨默斯获得任命，白宫或许会以下列论据来回应外界的批评风潮：

    -- 批评人士称，他在上世纪90年代支持取消金融管制【阻碍管制衍生品的提案获得通过，赞成撤销格拉斯-斯蒂格尔法案（Glass-Steagall）】，为金融危机创造了条件。但萨默斯一直以来都直言批评房利美（Fannie Mae）和房地美(Freddie Mac)，此两者据信是导致金融市场崩溃重要得多的因素。今年早些时候，萨默斯在哈佛肯尼迪学院（Harvard Kennedy School）由我主持的一个小组论坛上指出：“我一听人们谈公私合作（public-private partnership），我就会攥紧自己的钱包。除了房地美，没人比房利美更爱使用这个术语。大合作就相当于大灾难。”

    （保守派批评人士可能会问，当太阳能公司Solyndra获输5亿美元纳税人的钱时，萨默斯对公私合作的质疑在哪里？）

    -- 很多猜测都围绕如果萨默斯当选主席对于货币政策意味着什么。但是，美联储主席的工作一项关键的内容就是预见将要到来的危机——在这一点上，2008年以前所有的监管部门都失察了。因此，要警惕白宫将萨默斯冠以（罕有的）未来灾难预言家形象。2006年时，他曾经担心市场承担的风险水平过高，他说：“我们必须害怕的主要是人们压根就不害怕。” 

    Call him the Freddy Krueger of potential presidential nominees. Liberals, feminists, and plain-old targets of his withering dismissiveness may have thought they destroyed Larry Summers' shot at the Federal Reserve chairmanship. But he's back -- haunting their dreams of seeing stately womanhood at the helm of the nation's money supply.

    White House leakers tell the Washington Post that Summers is still in the running to succeed outgoing Ben Bernanke -- and, by some accounts, even topping the President's list. A Summers nomination would shock and defy vocal critics who form the core of Obama's liberal base and have been pushing Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen. And it's not just liberal activists: Yellen easily trounced Summers in a Reuters poll of economists asking who should be the next Fed chair.

    The Post and others say Summers remains in the mix largely because of President Obama's close relationship with, and regard for, the economic adviser who guided a new and uncertain administration through the early dark days of a massive recession. Summers is a believer in big, bold government action in the face of hard times. "Could the stimulus be too big?" he once said to me. "That's like asking me if I could lose too much weight."

    Obama also owes Summers critical political points. As National Economic Council director, Summers vigorously backed bailing out the auto industry. It was a decision that, in his own words on election day last year, led to a "very different economy in Ohio and a very different economy in Michigan" -- and a losing battle in both states, he noted, for Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

    If Summers does win the nomination, watch for the White House to counter a powerful storm of criticism with these talking points:

    -- Critics say his support for deregulation in the 1990s -- blocking proposals to regulate derivatives and favoring the elimination of Glass-Steagall -- contributed to the financial crisis. But Summers was long a vocal critic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, arguably far more important contributors to the collapse. As Summers said at a Harvard Kennedy School panel that I moderated earlier this year: "When I hear people talk about public-private partnerships, I reach for my wallet. No one used the term more than Fannie Mae, unless it was Freddie Mac. Massive collaboration, massive disaster."

    (Conservative critics could ask where Summers' suspicions of public-private partnership were hiding when solar company Solyndra was blowing through half a billion dollars of taxpayer money.)

    -- Much speculation has, rightly, centered on what a Summers chairmanship would mean for monetary policy. But a key part of the Fed chair's job is an ability to foresee crises on the horizon -- something all top regulators dropped the ball on pre-2008. So watch for the White House to position Summers as a (rare) seer of dangers to come. In 2006, he worried about the level of risk-taking with these words: "The main thing we have to fear is lack of fear itself."