Summers would have been President in a different era
The name of the game in 2015 politics is to do as little as possible, say as little as possible and invest all your efforts in taking credit for good news and passing the blame for bad news. There is no thought leadership and political correctness is paramount.
Every one of those things is Larry Summers' weakness. When he plays it down the middle he sounds disingenuous and he's incapable of political correctness, as shown in the gender fiasco at Harvard. He remained in that mire as he lobbied to take over the Fed.
His chief problem was that Political Larry was unlikeable. He seemed overly calculating, fake and overwhelmingly smug. But since he abandoned his fed campaign a New Larry has emerged. He's willing to take on unpopular issues and he's remarkably convincing.
He's a pure thought leader. He single-handedly shifted the debate on secular stagnation.
Now, take his weekend Op-Ed in the Washington Post on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade deal has been hit from every angle but he managed to deliver an entirely fresh take.
In a surprise turn, Mr Deregulation doesn't take the Democrats to task for not supporting the President.
"The era of agreements that achieve freer trade in the classic sense is essentially over. The world's remaining tariff and quota barriers are small," he writes in an eye-opening comment.
"Today, we have [a truly global economy], and it has supported the greatest economic progress in the history of the world in emerging markets and is working spectacularly well for capital and a cosmopolitan elite that moves easily around the world. But being pressed down everywhere are middle classes who lack the wherewithal to take advantage of new global markets and do not want to compete with low-cost foreign labor. Our challenge now is less to increase globalization than to make the globalization we have work for our citizens."
Didn't see that one coming.