The Obama Transition: Don't Forget Danzig

Serious RUMINT:  Richard Danzig, possibly as deputy secretary of defense through the Gates transition; then Secretary of Defense. But who knows if Gates will stay on?

A senior-level Democrat says that John Kerry should not be taken lightly as a potential secretary of state.

Lynn Sweet says Chris Lu, Obama's Senate chief of staff and currently a top adviser to the transition committee, will be its executive director.

Sen. Richard Lugar says he won't be a cabinet appointee in the Obama administration.  Neither will Sen. Jack Reed.

Low-level chatter:

Eric Schmidt  (CTO), Eric Holder, Deval Patrick (possible AGs), Bob Bauer & Mark Alexander (WH counsel), Mark Brzezinski (NSA), Ron Noble (FBI), Ron Kirk (Commerce),  Warren Buffett (Sec/Treas) Bill Richardson (Sec/State)  Kathleen Sullivan (SG), Cass Sunstein (WH Domestic Policy Adv.), Chrales Ogletree (Civ Rights Div of DOJ), Robert Sussman (EPA), Rand Beers (Director of National Intelligence) and for the Supreme Court, Judge Diane Wood, former SG Seth Waxman, Harvard Dean Elena Kagan, and Jodge Sonia Sotomayor.

My previous lists here.

 

Comments

Sounds about right for Danzig. He has been angling for the SecDef position.

Posted by rts | October 27, 2008 4:18 PM

Why don't you steal a little more from the ABA Journal.

Posted by Anon | October 27, 2008 4:22 PM

I think the Secretary of Defense move makes perfect sense given Danzig's glowing endorsement.

Posted by RidleyGriff | October 27, 2008 4:25 PM

I didn't see Andrew Sullivan's name on any of your lists :P

Posted by John B | October 27, 2008 4:26 PM

Marc:
I'll repeat it for the 8,000th time. Buffett will not be SecTreas. Never in a million years. He doesn't want to live in D.C. He is not going to give up Berkshire Hathaway. He likes being able to keep his own schedule. So, stop with Buffett's name already!!

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | October 27, 2008 4:45 PM

Should Kerry be a serious contender for a Cabinet position? He's in line to take the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since Dodd probably won't give up Banking. If Obama were to tap Kerry for the State Department, then Russ Feingold would be in line to take over the Foreign Relations Committee and he probably would be more outspoken if Obama doesn't move very quickly to end our commitment of troops to Iraq and thus causing an Obama administration a lot of unnecessary headaches from the left.

Posted by Ken | October 27, 2008 4:51 PM

That's a very good point about Kerry and potential committee Chairs. I mostly wonder why he would want a Cabinet position, seeing as he's likely to become the senior Senator from Massachusetts, and he'll probably be a very powerful go-to member of the Senate in an Obama administration at that.

He'd be a great Sec. of State if he wanted it, but I'm not sure he'll actually want it.

Posted by dannity | October 27, 2008 4:56 PM

Another name for Solicitor General: David Levy, current Dean of Duke University School of Law and former Federal Court Judge...whose brother ran the law firm that first hired Michele and then Barack Obama in Chicago.

Leon Panetta is a COS option.

Fitzgerald would be an excellent AG (the position that John Edwards wanted before his future imploded).

Posted by Cascius | October 27, 2008 5:09 PM

Marc didn't "steal" from the ABA Journal; if you want to cast blame, blame me. Marc is showing a list of who has been discussed from various sources - he has publicly sourced very few of the names on his list - and I sent him an e-mail noting that the ABA Journal had undertaken a similar exercise and had some additional names which I then listed. I told him I was giving a partial list, because some I omitted were obvious and some he already had from other sources (which would give him good reason to not cite the ABA Journal when he knew the list, while representative of theirs, was incomplete, and when he had some of the same names from other sources).

Posted by zeitgeist | October 27, 2008 5:14 PM

this is probably an outrageous forecast, but what about Michael McConnell for SCOTUS. Yes, he's a Bush-appointee. And yes, he's pro-life. But he's not in the same mold as scalia/thomas and has broad support from liberal law professors. Also, he recommended that the Law School hire Obama.

I think it would be tactically brilliant. A way to defuse the politicization of the court and shut some of Obama's harshest conservative critics up.

Posted by anon | October 27, 2008 5:22 PM

this is probably an outrageous forecast, but what about Michael McConnell for SCOTUS.

This is an outrageous forecast.

Posted by Oracle | October 27, 2008 5:23 PM

If appointed, I will not serve as Surgeon General.

Posted by Kathleen Sullivan | October 27, 2008 5:25 PM

I echo what everyone who has ever had any direct or indirect contact with Warren Buffett says: He'll never ever take a job in government, Cabinet-level or otherwise. He'll be pleased to take the President's calls and talk for as much time as is needed, giving whatever help and advice he can, but that'll be the limit of his involvement.

Posted by John from Concord | October 27, 2008 5:35 PM

Marc

Where is Sussan Rice? I think Sussan Rice is going to be a key player behind the scene. I'd expect Sussan Rice to be the NSA, and Alex Goldsbee to head council of economics team.

Don't forget the congress man from Alabama, Authur Davis, he is a very compelling figure.

Rahm Emmanuel is not going to be chief of staff...he is eyeing the senate seat

Posted by Bee | October 27, 2008 5:42 PM

Would be very interested in any reporting Marc can do vis a vis the notion suggested a couple weeks ago by Marty Peretz at TNR that Kerry negotiated SecState for himself in exchanges for his Dem nomination endorsement. Has Marc heard that from anyone; if so how much credibility does he give to it and those who report it?

Posted by Mike | October 27, 2008 6:10 PM

First off, the reader who suggests Andrew Sullivan in an Obama White House isn't really off the mark. In some sort of senior adviser role? Sullivan would shine. But it begs the question: Since the whole HIV bill thing from last spring, has Sully gone through the process of becoming a citizen??

But, I digress...

I think any Obama list would need to at least entertain the thought of Colin Powell. Either as Education Secretary or as some sort of informal adviser.

Thoughts?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Posted by Wayne | October 27, 2008 7:07 PM

I really hope Bob Bauer gets dumped after the election. He's probably the only guy on Obama's team who could be described as hysterical or melodramatic.

Posted by Howard | October 27, 2008 7:32 PM

What about Bill Richardson? I always figured that Obama would consider him for some position within the administration after he endorsed against the Clintons in the primaries.

Posted by Leah | October 27, 2008 7:36 PM

A senior-level Democrat says that John Kerry should not be taken lightly as a potential secretary of state

I'm assuming that this "senior-level Democrat" is John Kerry.

Posted by Gene | October 27, 2008 7:46 PM

At least this list is full of Democrats, unlike the last one.

If the election were held today, the democrats will have dominated the last 2 federal elections. Maybe 50+ seats picked up in the house, plus a change of control of the senate and the presidency over 2 years. That's a realignment - it doesn't call out for conciliatory power sharing and baby steps. They are doing it with the voter's full knowledge of the GOP crying wolf over a united government.

The people demand action on healthcare, peace, our planet, and unstable economic policies that concentrate wealth in the hands of the birth lottery winners.

Obama is being asked by the people to do something bold. I believe he knows this is the moment - you don't get a second shot at a realignment like this.

Posted by patrick | October 27, 2008 8:00 PM

I'm curious... Is there still any talk of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Sec of Energy or a green-collar czar? He can't run for President. He's going to face an uphill political climate in California. He's the highest profile Republican outside of Washington DC. With strong Kennedy family ties, he'd be a safe pick in my estimation.

Posted by WIRadioGuy | October 27, 2008 8:32 PM

Larry Craig for Solicitor General.

Posted by ludwig van brickoven | October 28, 2008 12:07 AM

Plenty of talent there. Far better than the current crew, or Meg Whitman, Phil Gramm, or the Hewlett-Packard lady.

Posted by noho1 | October 28, 2008 1:35 AM

Please tell me that Gates will NOT be retained as SecDef. Anybody remember Gates faking intel on the "Russian plot" to kill the Pope? His involvement in Iran-Contra? His lack of action on the drug money laundering and terrorist financing BCCO bank? Keeping stop loss in place and generally following the Bush neocon line on Iraq? Why not Jim Webb, Vietnam Vet and Deputy SecDef and Navy Sec under Reagan, and a critic of the Iraq War? Or Republican Senator and Bush critic Chuck Hagel? How about ANYBODY BUT GATES?

Posted by AK Wilks | October 28, 2008 2:41 AM

If elected, Obama will appoint Lani Guinier as Attorney General and declare he's doing it "just to piss off the folks at The Corner." Then he'll challenge Joe Lieberman to a game of one-on-one and elbow him hard enough to break his jaw. Finally, in the spirit of bipaartisanship, he'll make Bill Kristol special ambassador to Nunavut.

Posted by Ben | October 28, 2008 3:26 AM

To see the mention that my old professor Obama might select my other professors Elena Kagan (Dean of Harvard Law School) or Diane Wood (7th Circuit) is pretty heartening. But I will throw out another name you might hear from out of the blue:

Tom Perelli.

Brown U. undergrad, Harvard Law chum of Obama, former Clinton Justice official, head of the DC office of Jenner & Block (bigtime Chicago based law firm) and about 43 years old. I see him at least on the DC Circuit as a stepping stone to the Supremes, at Justice for the same reason, or as Solicitor General for the same reason. You heard it here first.

Posted by B-Rob | October 28, 2008 8:42 AM

state: richardson
defense: wesley clark
energy: arnold 'make my day'
nsc: rice
hhs: sebelius
ag: dodd
somewhere: hagel, mccaskill, axelrod, gibb
nowhere: buffet, patrick, webb

a few big surprises
a few big groans

Posted by Walter | October 28, 2008 10:03 AM

I would like to see a real and serious re-organization of the government. There are redundancies and agencies that should no longer exist. I don't expect that to happen right away, but this government has agencies that worked for the 19th and 20th century mindset.

We need something up to date which works.

Posted by Betty Chambers | October 28, 2008 12:54 PM

Unknown in education would be Dr. Cathy Grace of the Early Childhood Institute and the National Early Childhood Center. She is one of a handful of leading early childhood experts that are taking a lead role in his plan to lift up that area.

Posted by HoosierDaddy | November 5, 2008 1:53 PM