UMass's Bair on Treasury list as Obama fills jobs
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WASHINGTON - An Amherst woman who has been working in the thick of the financial crisis is on a short list to become President-elect Barack Obama's new Treasury secretary, according to several news sources, including NBC News and CNN.
Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., taught financial regulatory policy at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass for four years before President Bush named her to head the FDIC in 2006. She still maintains a home in Amherst and was there on vacation in August.
Obama quickly began filling out his new administration Wednesday, selecting hard-charging Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff while aides stepped up the pace of transition work that had been cloaked in pre-election secrecy.
Several Democrats confirmed that Emanuel had been offered the job. While it was not clear he had accepted, a rejection would amount to an unlikely public snub of the new president-elect within hours of an electoral college landslide.
With hundreds of jobs to fill and only 10 weeks until Inauguration Day, Obama and his transition team confronted a formidable task complicated by his anti-lobbyist campaign rhetoric.
In August, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, included Bair on a list of potential Treasury secretaries in an Obama administration, calling her "creative and tough and imaginative."
Bair, 54, is a Republican from Kansas. She was an early critic of subprime loans, and has worked closely with Democrats and prodded banks to develop plans to modify loans that homeowners can no longer afford. Forbes magazine named her the second most powerful woman in the world in August because she is "trying to stave off financial panic amid a worldwide credit crisis." Bair was assistant secretary of the treasury for financial institutions when she left Washington in 2002 to move to Amherst.
Also being eyed for the Treasury job are billionaire investor Warren Buffett, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner, and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, according to several news sources.
The day after the election there already was jockeying for Cabinet appointments.
Several Democrats said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who won a new six-year term on Tuesday, was angling for secretary of state. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss any private conversations.
Kerry's spokeswoman, Brigid O'Rourke, disputed the reports. "It's not true. It's ridiculous," she said in an interview.
The official campaign Web Site said no political appointees would be permitted to work on "regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration."
But almost exactly one year ago, on Nov. 3, 2007, candidate Obama went considerably further than that while campaigning in South Carolina. "I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House," he said of lobbyists at the time.
Because they often have prior experience in government or politics, lobbyists figure as potential appointees for presidents of both parties.
On the morning after making history, the man elected the first black president had breakfast with his wife and two daughters at their Chicago home, went to a nearby gym and visited his downtown offices.
Aides said he planned no public appearances until later in the week, when he has promised to hold a news conference. As president-elect, he begins receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials today.
In offering the post of White House chief of staff to Emanuel, Obama turned to a fellow Chicago politician with a far different style from his own, a man known for his bluntness as well as his single-minded determination.
Emanuel was a political and policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House. Leaving that, he turned to investment banking, then won a Chicago-area House seat six years ago. In Congress, he moved quickly into the leadership. As chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in 2006, he played an instrumental role in restoring his party to power after 12 years in the minority.
Emanuel maintained neutrality during the long primary battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not surprising given his long-standing ties to the former first lady and his Illinois connections with Obama.
Announcement of the transition team came in a written statement from the Obama camp.
The group is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff under former President Clinton; Pete Rouse, who has been Obama's chief of staff in the Senate, and Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the president-elect and campaign adviser.
Several Democrats described a sprawling operation well under way. Officials had kept deliberations under wraps to avoid the appearance of overconfidence in the weeks leading to Tuesday's election.
They said the group was stocked with longtime associates of Obama, as well as veterans of Clinton's White House.
Quite apart from transition issues, Obama's status as an incumbent member of Congress presents issues unseen since 1960, when John F. Kennedy moved from the Senate to the White House.
The Senate is scheduled to hold a postelection session in two weeks, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi held a news conference Wednesday to reinforce her call for quick action on a bill to stimulate the economy.
That places Obama in uncharted territory - a president-elect, presumably first among equals among congressional Democrats. Yet his and their ability to enact legislation depends almost entirely until Inauguration Day on President Bush's willingness to sign it.
Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, was elected to a new six-year term from Delaware on Tuesday and he must resign before he can be sworn in as vice president. Democrats are certain to hold his seat, following Jack Markell's election as governor.
There has been intense speculation that Biden's son, Beau Biden, is interested in ascending to the seat. But he is serving a one-year stint in Iraq as a member of the National Guard. In the interim, outgoing Gov. Ruth Ann Minner is seen among many Democrats as a likely appointee to hold the office until an election in 2010.
Obama also must resign his Senate seat before he can be sworn in as the 44th president. Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will pick a replacement.
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Nedra Pickler reported from Chicago. AP writers Liz Sidoti and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed from Washington and Glen Johnson from Boston.
Comments
With all due respect
for Sheila Bair, which from the news I've read has all been quite positive about Bair's understanding of and handling of the financial crisis at the FDIC, Obama really needs a well known and respected household name for his treasury secretary, if only for the confidence that would instill in the markets.
I don't think Sheila Bair has enough of a high profile public awareness to be a first pick as sec treasury right now.
Obama's meeting with Warren Buffet, Paul Volker, and William Daley ought to be received positively tomorrow, I hope. Simply having someone who consults with well respected experts, ferrets out their ideas, and reflects on them, ought to be a good first step and a welcome change from the reactive, the-sky-is-falling adminstration of the past couple months.