Obama taps 'chic elite' for top positions
Landing these great jobs depends on your social circle
Man, I wish I had bet on Desiree Rogers. I'd be eating an expensive seafood dinner right about now.
Rogers, a close friend of President-elect Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, is about to become the social secretary at the White House.
My friend, who shall remain nameless, was sure Rogers would be one of the left-behind Obama supporters.
He must have overlooked her Harvard MBA.
We both agreed that after the grueling campaign, Valerie Jarrett would have her pick of offices. Jarrett first made a name for herself at City Hall as Mayor Daley's confidante. She presided over the city's Department of Planning and Development. She also headed up the troubled CTA Board when no one really wanted the job.
In both roles, she has survived ugly skirmishes with the local activists while maintaining close ties with some of the most powerful people in the city.
As CEO and president of the Habitat Company, Jarrett could have drifted from public view.
But her close relationship with the Obamas, coupled with her great social networking skills, helped draw unprecedented financial support for Obama's run for the White House and thrust her back into the limelight.
She, along with Rogers -- a socialite who is as savvy as she is smart -- are what my friend calls members of the "chic elite."
They are the black folks who -- because of their pedigree or their education -- are considered a rung above the black professional class.
They emerge from the hallowed halls of schools such as Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Wellesley and Yale with the social contacts that decades of exemplary work can't even buy.
Rogers, 49, will be the first African American to hold the post of White House social secretary.
After stints at the Illinois State Lottery and as president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, and most recently with Allstate Financial, Rogers will use her expert social skills coordinating White House events.
Proper decorum seems a natural fit for Rogers. Although she's divorced from John Rogers, head of Ariel Capital Management, both are members of the same exclusive social circle; they worked closely with the Obama campaign.
There was not even a whiff of drama. In fact, if you didn't know it, you'd see them and forget they were no longer a power couple.
When Obama unveiled his economic team Monday, it was also a lesson of sorts for the ordinary Joes who are scuffling to find a job.
The ability to land great jobs often depends on your social circle.
Judging from the way the Obama administration is shaping up, the party may have changed, but the White House will be ruled by the same club.
Larry Summers, Obama's top economic adviser, earned an advanced degree from Harvard; Timothy Geithner, tapped for treasury secretary, graduated from Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins; Christina Romer, who will head the Council of Economic Advisers, received her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1985.
Melody Barnes, an African-American woman, will be named director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Barnes is also a "chic elite" who holds a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a law degree from the University of Michigan.
She is also the former chief counsel to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) on the Judiciary Committee.
Had the top-tier universities snubbed diversity, I'm afraid there would be very, very slim pickings for the country's first black president.
"I was very pleased to see Melody Barnes listed as being part of the team," noted William Spriggs, professor and chair at the Department of Economics at Howard University.
"Although she will [handle] domestic policy, it does mean that [Obama] thinks his [economic team] has to touch a broad set of policies and is not just focusing on the financial institutions," he said. "When I was at the National Urban League, Melody interfaced with the civil rights community. It makes me feel comfortable that somebody with that kind of background will have some input."
So, I'm all for the rise of the chic-elites.
Still, I'm hoping an accomplished graduate from regular college USA makes it into the Obama mix.