After thinking about it, I like it. Obama can't be everywhere at once and Clinton will have the clout and standing to handle a lot of Foreign Affairs stuff herself. I also think she will work very hard at pulling State out of the abyss that has been the last 8 years and restoring an esprit-de-corps among the staff.
Lyndon Johnson once proposed a cabinet department called Business and labor. Should Obama create such one, who is going to be the Secretary?
Talk about a team of rivals. If the rumors about Richardson at Commerce pan out, Obama will have every one of his serious rivals from the primaries (excluding the one that cheated on his gravely ill wife) in his cabinet. I love this move. Clinton is obviously very qualified. And this is a great way to complete the transition from the two of them being rivals to allies. I also think it puts her in a great position to be the next nominee in 2016, assuming her health holds up. She'd be 72 (I think), the same age McCain was when he ran.
I don't think that the Secretary of State sets policy on his or her own. I do think that Hilary will be a good manager. I don't know whether Powell was or not, but the State Department was demoralized by the Bush-Cheney crowd who basically only wanted war and bullying and weren't in to much diplomacy. In general I am against the Dems losing sitting Senators with seniority to the Cabinet. I guess Hillary does not have that much seniority.
No way she will make it in 2016, you don't elect a 72 year old women, that's just a fact in today's soceity.
That's not what I said. To clarify, she has the name and clout to be a more than adequate substitute for Obama in the eyes of foreign leaders and the foreign press. I fully expect the overarching policy goals to come from the White House.
You don't elect Hillary Clinton as president period. She isn't the right woman. Palin has a better personality for it, but either lacks the intelligence or there is a perception of a lack of intelligence. Younger women would stand a better chance.
I wonder if you were one of the many here that said there was no way Obama would win, only 2-4 years ago. I don't know if you were or not, but a lot of smart posters were in that camp. Saying "no way" about anything to do with 2016 right now seems a little silly. Whether it's Hillary or not, Biden will not be the frontrunner in 2016. I hope that mantle will go to a woman and I hope she will be imminently qualified. Nobody knows what the next 8 years will bring, but for now Hillary's the only really strong possibility that way. And if she spends a good deal of time at SoS, nobody will be able to touch her credentials.
Well, is Obama going to have one imaginative new face anywhere close to the Cabinet? Hopefully his big move is not just keeping the hawkish Gates or something. Isn't the Treasury guy just another Goldman Sachs Paulson guy who was responsible for dergulation? I would hope that he has at least told the Obama folks that they blew it. Not impressed by his cabinet choices.
Oh great, he can send some more slush to Paulson when he returns to the Street as the greatest rainmaker of all time.
Have you looked at the values of these Wall Street firms recently? The bailout wasn't designed to benefit the Street, and it hasn't.
