By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Thursday named J.P. Morgan Chase executive William Daley to be his new White House chief of staff, retooling his team with a politically savvy businessman at the helm.
Obama, announcing his decision at a White House ceremony, said he hoped Daley, who was commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton, would help energize the U.S. economy. "He possesses a deep understanding of how jobs are created and how to grow our economy," Obama said.
By picking Daley, Obama is bringing in a manager who was not part of his original inner circle and someone who has deep business experience at a time when fixing the U.S. economy is his greatest challenge ahead of his 2012 re-election bid.
"This team will not let you down, or the nation," Daley said.
Daley, whose appointment was welcomed by the U.S. business community, was campaign manager for then-Vice President Al Gore in his 2000 presidential campaign and also was president of SBC Communications. More recently he had has been responsible for operations in the Midwest for J.P. Morgan Chase.
Obama had been urged by some Democratic officials to reach outside his comfort zone and bring in some fresh thinking in response to the Republican rout of Democrats in the November 3 congressional elections.
Obama joked that Daley has a "smidgen of awareness" of how the U.S. political system works.
Current chief of staff Pete Rouse, a long-time Obama adviser who relishes a behind-the-scenes role, is being moved to the senior advisory position of counsellor to the president.
The crowd of Obama staffers burst into a spontaneous standing ovation when Obama announced Rouse's new role, and the low-key Rouse seemed caught up in the emotion of the gesture.
William Galston, an economist who was a domestic policy adviser to Clinton, said Daley should help Obama repair frayed relations with the U.S. business community, which has complained that Obama's policies hurt job creation.
"He has excellent connections with the business community and I think will be a very credible and reassuring bridge to them as the Obama administration tries to reset relations with them," Galston said.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick, Jeff Mason, Alister Bull and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Bill Trott)
