Kerry economic team hearkens to Clinton era

[Nambe]

MSNBC

The campaign insiders are led by Jason Furman, a 34-year-old Harvard Ph.D. who was an aide to Clinton adviser Gene Sperling, and Sarah Bianchi, 31, a health care policy expert who worked for Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000. Furman serves as economic policy director and reports to Bianchi, who is in charge of all domestic policy issues.

They are assisted by Marco Trbovich, a former official with the United Steelworkers of America, who manages labor policy. Like Kerry, Trbovich served in the Navy in the Vietnam years and joined the antiwar movement on his return home.

Furman, the only Ph.D. economist on Kerry’s full-time staff, is considered the one responsible for making sure Kerry’s numbers add up. Ironically Furman’s dissertation adviser was none other than Gregory Mankiw, chief of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers. If Kerry were to win, Furman presumably would be at the top of the short list to take Mankiw’s job.

Furman generally gets high marks as an articulate spokesman for Kerry’s mostly centrist economic views. ..
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