NEERA TANDEN, THE FIRST AMERICAN FORCED TO WITH-draw from a cabinet-level nomination because of bad tweeting, has a winning scrappiness. The child of immigrants from India, Tanden experienced the vast social chasm of American life after her parents’ divorce when she was 5. She ended up splitting her childhood between her struggling mother, who on occasion relied on food stamps, and her well-to-do father, who lived in the suburbs.
From her mother, Tanden inherited a fighting spirit. She also possesses an ability, surely honed in her father’s house, to nimbly navigate the world of the affluent. That has served her well in her capacity as president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, where a large chunk of her job consists of drumming up money from corporations, business tycoons,…
