News broke this week that Obama ruled  out nominating Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who spent the  last year creating and staffing the agency, to the bureau’s top post.

His statement also thanked Warren “not only for her extraordinary work standing up the new agency over the past  year, but also for her many years of impassioned leadership, and her fierce  defense of a simple idea: ordinary people deserve to be treated fairly and  honestly in their financial dealings.”

Like many Democrats in Congress, Stephanie Taylor, co-founder of the  Progressive Change Campaign Committee, wanted Warren to get the job. Her group  circulated a number of petitions online, ultimately collecting more than 350,000  signatures for WeSupportWarren.org.