Glenn Thrush writes February 21 at Politico:

 

Expect to see more of Shaun Donovan between now and November.

 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which Donovan has run since the start of the Obama administration, has been a backwater of corruption, cronyism and ineptitude in the worst stretches of its history — and outgunned and overshadowed by the Treasury Department more recently.

But Donovan, a boyish former New York housing official, is gaining substantial new leverage within the administration and a seat at the grown-up’s table, thanks to his deft drafting of a landmark $20-plus billion mortgage fraud settlement announced this month — and the election-year reality that President Barack Obama needs to show progress on the housing crisis, and fast.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/73145.html