Janet Yellen is back where she started: The presumptive next chairman of the Federal Reserve. Larry Summers, President Barack Obama's favored candidate to run the Fed, withdrew his name for consideration for the post last evening -- leaving the job almost certainly to Yellen.
Summers had the support of not just Obama but also his coterie of economic advisers -- Jason Furman, Tim Geithner, Jack Lew, Gene Sperling -- who grew close to one another and to Summers during the Bill Clinton administration. If Summers had the inside track, however, an odd mix of supporters boosted Yellen: economists outside the White House, the press and a band of Summers-hating progressives.
