Sperling Tapped to Be Obama's Economic Adviser -- and Negotiator

President Barack Obama has apparently chosen to replace his departing chief economic adviser, a veteran financial policymaker from the Clinton administration, with ... a veteran financial policymaker from the Clinton administration.

But there are big differences between Lawrence Summers, who steps down this month as director of the National Economic Council, and Gene Sperling, the man expected to be officially tapped for that job Friday. The White House said Obama will announce economic personnel moves when he discusses the December employment report set to be released that day.

Sperling, a senior counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, was deputy NEC chief and then the head of the council under President Bill Clinton, at a time when Summers was deputy treasury secretary and then the head of the Treasury Department.

But if new policies for job creation and broader economic revival were at the heart of Summers' mission for the past two years, the choice of Sperling may signal that the White House knows the Democrats' loss of the House leaves Obama little latitude to create new policy in Congress. Instead, he must wrangle with Republicans to get anything done.

Sperling was one of the principal negotiators with Republican leaders of last month's deal on extension of the Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless. He was one of Clinton's economic point men during the budget standoffs with majority Republicans in Congress during the 1990s.

And, as a deficit hawk, Sperling presided over economic policy at a time when the government was paying down the national debt with the budget surpluses of the latter Clinton years.

That's an accomplishment Obama is almost sure to cite when he announces Sperling's appointment, considering how politically resonant the current budget deficits are and how much Democrats and Republicans are vying to be the party of fiscal responsibility.

Sperling, 52, may also find himself negotiating and at times sparring with fellow Democrats at a time when fights over taxes and spending -- likely to dominate Washington for the next two years -- will probably take place within the president's party as well.

An adviser to the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and Obama before joining the two Democratic administrations, Sperling is -- like Clinton-era budget chief Jack Lew, who recently returned to that job under Obama -- widely respected in the party.

After defending last month's tax cut deal with Republicans to initially skeptical and angry Democrats, he was asked to speak before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, where one of his main themes was that job creation and deficit cutting aren't mutually exclusive.

"The president rightly stated last week that it is a 'false choice' to claim that 'we have to choose between paying down our deficits on the one hand and investing in job creation and economic growth on the other,'" Sperling told the Democrats. "Indeed, there are few things that could harm deficit forecasts more than a failure to keep the economy from returning to negative growth or a sustained period of job loss going forward."

More-liberal Democrats may also find reassurance in the choice of Sperling, at a time when an even more high-profile appointment -- former Clinton Commerce Secretary William Daley as White House chief of staff -- is going to a politician considered a pro-business centrist.

When the White House announced in September that Summers would be returning to Harvard this month, many in Washington expected Obama to name a successor from Wall Street and make peace with a business community upset by health care changes and finance reform.

Though one of Sperling's high-paying jobs during the Bush administration was advising Goldman Sachs -- on the firm's charitable giving -- his background and outlook appear to be clearly more Washington than Wall Street. Which can't be said about two others thought to have been on Obama's shortlist for Summers' successor, Roger Altman and Richard Levin.

The first real test of Sperling's influence will come in late January, when Obama makes a State of the Union address in which the economy will almost surely be at the top of the agenda.