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11/24/2008

The list of Clinton alums in the transition or the administration starts with Hillary Clinton, who is reportedly set to take over at State, then goes to Emanuel, the incoming White House chief of staff, transition co-chairman (and Clinton White House chief of staff) John Podesta and plenty of lower-level aides. Eric Holder, whom Obama will reportedly nominate as attorney general, was a deputy at the Justice Department under Clinton. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who is likely to be named Commerce secretary soon, had several Clinton administration jobs (though he endorsed Obama after dropping out of the presidential race himself). Clinton's former Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, will be a senior White House economic advisor and nearly got his old job back -- which progressives are particularly alarmed about. "Appointing someone who helped get us into this mess with what he fought for is a really bad idea," said Robert Borosage, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future. (New York Federal Reserve branch head Tim Geithner will be named the new Treasury secretary-designate on Monday; he's worked closely with much of the Clinton-era economic team in the past.)

Some antiwar activists are also starting to wonder what happened to the Obama who first rose to prominence in the Iowa caucuses because he opposed the war. "Obama always really used to his advantage the fact that he did not support the Iraq war in the beginning, and that was a key argument that he used to discredit Hillary Clinton, and something that he was able to tout to his benefit," said Kelly Dougherty, executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "People put all this hope into getting Obama elected -- the reasons were much deeper. They didn't just want to get him elected, but they want to see real change." Add in Clinton, at State, and Vice President-elect Joe Biden, and Obama would be getting foreign policy and military advice from a lot of people who supported the Iraq war. And then there are people who are rumored to be under consideration who worked for someone far more hated on the left than Hillary Clinton. If Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates, sticks around, how will that play with the base? How about John Brennan, who worked at the CIA earlier in the Bush administration and whom Obama is rumored to like for a top intelligence job (either at CIA or as director of national intelligence)? The Brennan rumor is already proving divisive because of his support for torture.

Still, even critics are sanguine about some of Obama's picks. Obama doesn't have much choice except to turn to ex-Clinton aides in many jobs; there aren't many Democrats who are ready to take relatively senior positions who've worked in government but didn't work for Clinton.

"It hasn't surprised me that he's chosen stars from the Clinton bench, because that's the bench we have," said Borosage, who -- aside from the return of Summers to a national role -- mostly likes the direction of the transition so far. "Many of the appointments strike me as terrific, in the sense of serious people who will try to get things done."

That does seem to be the main factor motivating what the transition team is doing so far. Every public statement from Obama, Podesta and Emanuel has emphasized a desire to hit the ground running on Jan. 20; progressives may not love some of the names Obama is appointing to these jobs, but they still like what he says he wants the appointees to do once in office. Working in Chicago, Obama aides never spent much time during the campaign worrying about what Democrats back in D.C. were saying about their strategy, and so far, the transition team seems to be taking a similar approach. Emanuel, after meeting with Senate Republicans on Thursday, sounded more bipartisan and magnanimous than he ever has before. "The challenges for the country are large," he told reporters. "The problems we face are of a serious magnitude. There is enough area and enough goodwill for ideas from both parties to solve those challenges."

Obama aides seem to have settled on a pretty blunt message for supporters who don't like the appointments he's making: Obama's in charge -- calm down. "People need to understand one thing," senior advisor David Axelrod told ABC News' "This Week With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday. "There's one person who's going to be in charge of American foreign policy, and there's one person who's going to be in charge of American economic policy. And that's Barack Obama."

For now, any grumbling is at a low enough volume that it doesn't have Obama staffers worried; even Kuttner said some of the people who might raise eyebrows as Clintonites (like Holder, and incoming White House counsel Greg Craig) endorsed Obama in the primary campaign, representing a clear break. On Capitol Hill, Democrats say they're mostly impressed with the transition operation so far -- there's been hardly any infighting, the leaks of names appear to be deliberate and no one hears a peep about people who weren't picked. Obama's ban on lobbyists in the transition means plenty of Hill staffers are working to put together the new administration, which is a sure way to set lawmakers at ease, and many progressive interest groups already had relationships with the people doing the day-to-day work at the transition.

Still, sometime next year, if the White House proposes something that really gets under the skin of liberal activists, no one will be able to say they couldn't see it coming. It's one thing to build a coalition of progressives and sweep to the Oval Office on the heels of record disapproval for the current occupant. As Obama and his supporters are finding out already, it's a whole other thing to govern.

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• Part 1: Is Obama Killing his Honeymoon?
• Part 2: 'Appointing someone who helped get us into this mess... is a really bad idea'