In Cabinet choices, Obama goes for experience

December 21, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The candidate of change has wholeheartedly embraced experience in choosing his Cabinet.

President-elect Barack Obama has tapped senators and representatives, governors and veteran bureaucrats to help him confront the challenges of two wars, a crippled financial system and a deepening recession.

His reliance on experienced officials may seem a bit at odds with his campaign theme of “change we can believe in.” But some Democratic activists and nonpartisan analysts say it makes sense, given the dire economic problems and public anxiety.

“In uncertain times, Americans find it much more comforting that the people who are going to be advising the president are steeped in experience,” said Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker. “A Cabinet of outsiders would have been very disquieting.”

To be sure, Obama’s inner circle includes far more veterans of elected office and federal agencies than government newcomers.

More so than his recent predecessors, he has drawn heavily from the Senate for top advisers. His choices for secretary of state (Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York), interior secretary (Ken Salazar of Colorado) and vice president (Joe Biden of Delaware) were fellow senators.

Tom Daschle, named health secretary, was the Senate Democratic leader from South Dakota until he lost his seat in 2004.

From the House, Obama has plucked Reps. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as his chief of staff, Hilda Solis of California for labor secretary and just-retired Republican Ray LaHood of Illinois for transportation secretary.

He also settled on three prominent current or former governors for the Cabinet: Bill Richardson of New Mexico for commerce secretary, Janet Napolitano of Arizona at homeland security and Tom Vilsack, who stepped down as Iowa governor two years ago, for agriculture secretary.

Several appointees had ambitions far beyond their state borders. Vilsack, Richardson, Biden and Clinton sought the presidential nomination that Obama won. Daschle considered running for president as well.

Obama also came down on the side of experience in filling other Cabinet posts. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is a holdover from President George W. Bush’s administration and a former CIA director under Bush’s father. Attorney General-designee Eric Holder was deputy attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

Timothy Geithner, the choice for treasury secretary, is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s National Economic Council director, is a former treasury secretary.

Some Democrats have complained that Obama’s team will not do enough to shake up the status quo on matters such as the Iraq war, trade and oversight of the financial industry.

Former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk’s nomination to be U.S. trade representative, for example, drew fire from groups that say current policies have shipped too many jobs overseas and allowed unsafe imports to enter the country.

High-profile Cabinet members such as Gates and Hillary Clinton have drawn the most attention. But the few Washington newcomers in the group may end up playing bigger roles in Obama’s bid to break sharply from Bush administration policies.

Energy Secretary-designee Steven Chu, for example, pledges to give prominence to scientific research and efforts to combat global warming, two areas that many contend were slighted by Bush.