Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Most of President George W. Bush's nominees to the Federal Reserve have earned accolades from across the economic and political spectrums.

And then there's Kevin Warsh.

Bush's nomination of the 35-year-old White House aide -- a lawyer by training who would become one of only two members of the Fed's seven-member board of governors without a Ph.D. in economics -- has been greeted by criticism and bewilderment by some former Fed officials and economists. They point to his political connections and inexperience, and say the White House could have found a better-known, more qualified choice.

``Kevin Warsh is not a good idea,'' said former Fed Vice Chairman Preston Martin, who was appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1982. ``If I were on the Senate Banking Committee,'' which must approve Fed nominees, ``I would vote against him.''

``The Warsh nomination came out of left field,'' said Tom Schlesinger, executive director of the Financial Markets Center, a Howardsville, Virginia-based group that monitors the Fed.

The nomination of Warsh, who has been executive secretary of the president's National Economic Council, was one of two that Bush made on Jan. 27 to fill vacancies on the Fed. The other nominee, Randall Kroszner, 43, is a University of Chicago professor and a former Fed visiting scholar with a doctorate in economics from Harvard University.

All Seven

``Kroszner is a distinguished academic,'' said former governor Edward Gramlich, who left the Fed in August. ``The other one, Kevin, I don't know.'' Martin said that ``Kroszner is absolutely at the top of the list.''

If Warsh and Kroszner are confirmed, Bush will have appointed all seven members of the Fed board. The reaction to Warsh contrasts with the praise Bush has received for his other appointments. Former Vice Chairwoman Alice Rivlin, who was named to the board by Democratic President Bill Clinton, said in October that Bush's ``excellent appointments'' to the Fed ``are in the tradition of strong, well-qualified, non-ideological economists.'' Rivlin declines to comment about Warsh, on the grounds that she isn't familiar enough with him.

White House spokesman Trent Duffy said Warsh won't give interviews while his nomination is pending. The White House distributed a list of former Bush administration officials and Wall Street figures to provide testimonials, including former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William Donaldson, Stephen Friedman, former director of the National Economic Council, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman William Harrison and Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack.

More Than Models

``Kevin has spent a lot of time observing and being in the financial markets,'' said Friedman, former chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co. ``You want someone who understands the economy, with the frictions in it. Life doesn't always work like the models.''

``I have a very high confidence level that he will add a lot of value as a governor of the Fed,'' said Harrison, who has corresponded with Warsh on economic issues.

Warsh, if confirmed, would be the youngest member on a panel where the average age is currently 58. The nominee graduated from Harvard Law School in 1995 and spent the late 1990s working on mergers and acquisitions for Morgan Stanley in New York, where he provided financial advice to technology companies.

``There are plenty of people who'd be better suited to that open seat than someone who was a lawyer, a mergers-and-acquisitions specialist and an NEC adviser,'' said Lee Price, research director at the Economic Policy Institute, a Democratic-leaning research group in Washington.

Campaign Contributions

Warsh was hired by the White House in 2002 and began work immediately on Sarbanes-Oxley, the corporate-governance law that placed new restrictions on companies after scandals at Enron Corp. and WorldCom Inc. He has also served as the White House liaison to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Campaign disclosures show that Warsh gave $1,000 to Bush's 2000 election campaign and $1,000 to his 2004 re-election bid. Warsh is married to Jane Lauder, a granddaughter of cosmetics pioneer Estee Lauder; Jane Lauder's father, Ronald Lauder, was U.S. ambassador to Austria under Reagan and has donated $104,000 to the Republican National Committee since the 2000 election campaign, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a research group in Washington.

The White House council where Warsh works is one of the president's two economic advisory panels; Kroszner and new Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke both served Bush on the other committee, the Council of Economic Advisers.

White House Connections

If both Warsh and Kroszner are confirmed, said Fed-watcher Schlesinger, ``for the first time in recent decades, and maybe the first time ever, the board would include three governors who recently served in the administration that appointed them.'' That, he said, ``unavoidably make the board a more political cast.''

While little is known publicly about Warsh's views on such Fed concerns as inflation, employment growth and the global economy, hearings on the nomination that are scheduled for Feb. 14 may shed more light. In any event, Senator Richard Shelby, the Banking Committee chairman, said in an interview that he expects an easy confirmation.

``He's very smart,'' the Alabama Republican said. ``He'll sail through.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Brendan Murray in Washington brmurray@bloomberg.net ; Matt Benjamin in Washington at mbenjamin2@bloomberg.net