ABC's Jake Tapper on Elizabeth Warren Speculation

Consumer advocate and banking bailout oversight chair Elizabeth Warren is back in the news, as various groups — especially liberal ones -- fight to have her installed as head of the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Washington Post calls her the "most prominent and polarizing candidate." A YouTube rap video supporting her has gone viral (see the bottom of this post.)

On Point heard Wednesday from ABC's senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper, who said the Obama administration was "not sold yet."

“First of all there’s the question whether or not she could be confirmed in the Senate," Tapper said. "There are a lot of Republicans and probably some moderate-to-conservative Democrats who might oppose her nomination." He explained what he knew from background conversations:

I think right now the latest I’ve heard from senior White House officials is no decision has been made. They want her to play a role. But whether that role is director or not is in question. This is the creation of an entirely new bureaucracy, and whether or not Elizabeth Warren – even if she is a keen mind and a tough inquisitor – whether or not she has the experience to manage and create a bureaucracy out of nothing, I think is one of the big questions that the administration has not yet decided.

Given that a Senate hearing may be at issue, it's also interesting to recall Warren's candid statements about dealing with some of the very lawmakers who now might vote on her nomination. In her most recent appearance with On Point, at an event in June, Warren discussed the road ahead for financial reform, as the landmark legislation was still pending in Congress.

Host Tom Ashbrook asked her about the toughest parts of her work on Capitol Hill. Here's an excerpt of the audio and transcript:

http://audio.wbur.org/storage/2010/08/onpoint_0824_warren1.mp3

ELIZABETH WARREN: [T]he hardest part is having conversations with people who really don't want to hear what you have to say ... They already know the answer. And the answer just happens to fit with where they get a lot of support somewhere else financially. I got nothing when I walk into the room. You have to understand this. I don’t walk in with any votes, I don’t have any money to give. I just want to talk to people about what’s going on. And I think the part that is the hardest is sometimes I will talk to people in Congress – look, I think most of them, they didn’t go to Congress in order to lie, cheat, and steal. I think most of them went because they had some sense somewhere in their hearts at some point about public service. And I talk about what happens to middle class families and I watch faces, I watch eyes, connect on this, that say, “Yeah, I go back home, too.” And they name towns across America. And they say, “People are scared, people are worried, people are out of work. These are the things I hear in the grocery store, these are things I hear in the town hall meetings.”

TOM ASHBROOK: So what’s the counterweight then?

ELIZABETH WARREN: And then I say, “OK, look, here are three things we can do. But it’s about reining in an incredibly powerful industry. It’s about reining in a group that gives money and knows how to exercise power in Washington.” And I just watch the light go out, because it’s not going to happen.

In any case, here's the previously mentioned YouTube video promoting Warren, "The Main Street Brigade Presents a Sheriff Warren Rap":