Obama signals priority
2008-11-20 07:50
Chicago - US President-elect Barack
Obama selected Tom Daschle, a heavyweight former senator, to be
his health secretary on Wednesday, while former President Bill
Clinton took steps to help secure his wife the nation's top
diplomatic job.
The selection of Daschle, the former Senate Democratic
leader and part of Obama's inner circle, signalled an intention
by the Democratic president-elect to make an aggressive push to
overhaul the healthcare system.
Another member of Obama's close-knit inner-circle, David
Axelrod, was named senior White House adviser, according to an
announcement from the president-elect's transition team.
Obama's top choice for secretary of homeland security is
Arizona Democratic Gov Janet Napolitano, CNN reported late on
Wednesday, citing multiple Democratic sources close to the
transition.
CNN, quoting sources, also reported that billionaire
Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, was Obama's top choice
for commerce secretary. Pritzker, whose family founded the
Hyatt hotel chain, was national finance chair of Obama's
presidential campaign.
Axelrod, who was Obama's strategist during the campaign and
has been a political consultant for a long list of prominent
Democratic politicians, was seen as a crucial player behind
Obama's comfortable win over Republican John McCain in the November 4 presidential race.
Obama is likely to rely heavily on Axelrod for advice in
pushing an agenda of healthcare reform, middle-class tax breaks
and other domestic priorities, as he prepares to inherit a
deepening financial crisis and a ballooning budget deficit.
Greg Craig, a former special counsel to Clinton who
defended him during his impeachment troubles, will become White
House counsel when Obama takes office on January 20.
Mentor
Daschle served almost two decades in the Senate and was
majority leader from 2001 to 2003 while Democrats controlled
the chamber. He has served as a mentor to the president-elect,
having encouraged him early on to run for the White House and
advised him during the campaign.
Two Democratic officials said the South Dakota native had
accepted the job.
The agency he will lead oversees programmes such as Medicare,
the federal health insurance plan for people over the age of
65, which is expected to see costs balloon as the US
population ages.
The department is likely to spearhead Obama's charge to
expand healthcare coverage to 47 million uninsured Americans, a
key promise of his presidential campaign.
Another Democrat passionate about healthcare reform, New
York Senator Hillary Clinton, was weighing the option of becoming secretary of state or staying in the Senate, where she could help advance domestic policies.
Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, offered to
allow ethics reviews of future business and charitable
activities should she be picked by Obama to take the foreign
policy post, Democrats familiar with the issue said.
The former president is working to address questions about
whether his philanthropic and business work would create the
appearance of a conflict of interest in the event his wife got
the job.
"He is definitely helping. He is not an obstacle at all," a
Democrat familiar with the situation said.
Clinton administration aides
Obama continued to assemble his White House team from his
transition offices in Chicago, where he held private meetings
on Wednesday with vice president-elect Joe Biden and others.
He added a handful of former Clinton administration aides
to his team, including Daniel Tarullo, Susan Rice and James
Steinberg, to advise him on policy matters as he prepares for
his move to the White House.
Obama, who will succeed President George W Bush on January
20, released a list of names of people who will head "policy
working groups" during the next two months of the presidential
transition.
Many of the names were people in the running for top jobs
in the incoming administration.
Tarullo, an expert on the international economy and
regulatory matters and a professor at Georgetown University,
was named to head up the economic working group.
Steinberg, who was deputy national security adviser to
Clinton, and Rice, who was assistant secretary of state for
African affairs in the Clinton administration, will head the
advisory team on national security.
Daschle was listed as heading a healthcare working group.
Obama's goal of pushing efforts to tackle climate change
got a boost after Democratic Rep Henry Waxman, a crusader
against global warming, won a preliminary battle to become
chairperson of the US House of Representatives Energy and
Commerce Committee.
In a secret-ballot vote, Waxman narrowly beat current
Democratic chairperson Rep John Dingell, who is considered a
defender of the auto industry as a native of Michigan, the home
state of the Detroit automakers.