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BARACK OBAMA

Obama's Clinton-era picks tend to fit the Bill

Hillary Clinton, former staffers up for top jobs

By Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas

Washington Bureau

November 21, 2008

WASHINGTON — The roster shaping up for the Barack Obama administration is starting to look a little familiar, with an ironic pattern emerging as one name after another is added to the list.

A striking number of new and potential team members can trace their professional history to the same political birthplace—the administration of President Bill Clinton.

There's Sen. Hillary Clinton, of course, the former first lady now under consideration for secretary of state. And Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the former Bill Clinton aide who will be Obama's chief of staff. And Eric Holder, once top deputy to former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and now Obama's likely pick for attorney general. There's the new White House lawyer, the budget director and so on.

For all his talk of transformation, Obama's earliest decisions suggest something odd: The more things change, the more they look like the 1990s. Some predict a Clinton Restoration in the making.

"Voters hoping to see Obama bring a lot of fresh faces to D.C. must be disappointed," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "So far, it's been more like Clinton.gov than Change.gov."

It makes sense that the incoming Democratic president might fish for talent in the same pond as the last Democratic president. If Obama is looking for depth of expertise, there's a good chance that many job prospects were in or around the White House a decade ago.

But there's a certain irony to the developing pattern, given Obama's campaign pledge not to spend the next four years "refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s."

"There's no question about the talent level," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and policy adviser to Republican John McCain's presidential campaign. "They have a public relations problem in the appearance of not really fulfilling the, quote, change mandate."

The Clinton alums began to populate the new team right away, when Obama picked Emanuel from Illinois' congressional delegation for the first big assignment. After serving as political director in the Clinton White House, Emanuel agreed to help assemble and captain Obama's team as chief of staff.

Since then, the names of former Clinton administration officials have flowed plentifully, with more than two dozen set either to serve on an Obama transition team or to staff positions in the new administration.

At the same time, Hillary Clinton appears to be a serious candidate to head the State Department. By some lights, Obama never really considered Clinton as his vice presidential running mate, instead floating her name for the job while never formally vetting her.

But Clinton friends believe Obama seems more serious now, and developments suggest she is getting a more thorough review.

Hoping to ease qualms about how the former president's tangled business dealings might affect his wife's shot at the job, Bill Clinton gave the Obama transition team a complete list of more than 200,000 donors to his presidential library and charitable foundation, according to a Democrat familiar with discussions between the two camps.

Clinton had not previously released that material, arguing many donors had given money believing the gifts would not be disclosed.

With that donor list in hand, Obama has important new information needed to investigate whether making her secretary of state might pose any conflicts of interest.

Clinton loyalists think her prospects of becoming secretary of state are improving as rivals for the position fall away. Allies of Clinton consider her possible nomination smart.

"You have to give the president-elect an incredible amount of credit for building a Cabinet with stars in it," said Gov. Ed Rendell, credited with helping Clinton win the Pennsylvania primary. "It goes against the grain. You're told, 'Don't have anyone in there with their own base of support, or too famous.' "

Still, Clinton could complicate things. Obama has a vast network of volunteers whom he is counting on to help him get what he wants out of Congress—supporters who worked for "change."

Tom Bethany, 22, briefly ran the Obama campus campaign organization at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He says he's worried about the abundance of people with ties to the Clinton White House landing jobs.

"I think Obama's message of change could very easily be lost," Bethany said.On the economic team, several Clinton veterans are in the mix. CBO Director Peter Orszag is the possible budget director.

And in an anxiously awaited pick, Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has been mentioned frequently as Obama's treasury secretary.

The fact that such positions are still up in the air makes it too early to guess the actual impact of a Clinton reunion, says Republican Holtz-Eakin.

"Key appointments haven't happened yet," he said. "The question is, 'What will he choose to do?' "