DU Challenge! Pick the best cabinet using NO SENATORS.

[TheWraith]

Here's an entertaining game. Since it's silly to pack an administration with Senators, let's try picking an ideal cabinet using absolutely no sitting Senators. I think it would come a lot closer to a realistic list than the results we've previously gotten trying to play this game. :) You can feel free to only staff the prominant positions if you can't think of anybody. Obviously this is trying to pick what we think the best cabinet would be, not necessarily what actually comes out.

My list is as follows, blanks where I couldn't think of anything at this ungodly hour:

Secretary of State: Gen. (retired) Wes Clark
Secretary of the Treasury: Warren Buffett
Secretary of Defense: Col. (retired) Ann Wright
Attorney General: Andrew Cuomo
Secretary of the Interior:
Secretary of Agriculture:
Secretary of Commerce:
Secretary of Labor:
Secretary of Health and Human Services: Howard Dean
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development:
Secretary of Transportation:
Secretary of Energy:
Secretary of Education: Kathleen Sebelius
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Max Cleland
Secretary of Homeland Security: Richard Clarke

[vanderBeth]

1. Looking at your list, it doesn't seem so bad. :)

[TheWraith]

3. Thanks. To be honest, Ann Wright wasn't my first choice for SecDef...

I'd have preferred either Clark (substituting Bill Richardson as my second string SoS) or Claudia Kennedy, but both are ruled out by the 10 year waiting period to go from active military to SecDef.

[vanderBeth]

5. Yes, I like Clark too.

He is an EXTREMELY close second on my list of SoS.(Kerry's numero uno, but he's a Senator)

[lapfog_1]

2. How about ex-senators?

Tom Daschle should be Sec of Something in an Obama administration.

Interior? Agriculture?

And as for a retread, I would mind if Robert Reich came back to his old post of Secretary of Labor.

[TheWraith]

4. Sure. My intent was mainly to prevent people from cheating.

It's easy to hoover up half our Senate majority in terms of names. Kerry, Dodd, Clinton, Boxer, etc., etc. :) Fantasy lists based on depopulating the Capitol building.

I know Daschle was interested in HHS.

[lapfog_1]

6. I was hoping the good Doctor Dean would be HHS. - n/t

[vanderBeth]

7. There was a thread in GD where sources said that would be unlikely.

I hope those rumors aren't true, especially as Dean is going to be out of a job soon. :(

[lapfog_1]

8. What's up with that?

It's not like HHS would be a "plum" job. And Dean is a strong Obama supporter and was absolute aces with the DNC. And he is a medical doctor, no one better to get the ultimate respect of the M.D.s that work at places like the CDC. Plus he does have administrative experience, both as Chair of the party and as Governor.

I should think this would be a slam dunk no contest no controversy deal.

[vanderBeth]

9. Quite agree.

Here's that thread. May be (hopefully) all rumors.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4457175

[lapfog_1]

11. That thread just depressed the hell out of me.

I respect everything that madfloridian has ever wrote here. No one has worked harder for Obama or the Dems in general on this site (OK, there are a number of ties). I hope that this is wrong and that some Progressives make it into the cabinet, but I must say that all the pussyfooting around with Joe Lieberman has me depressed as well.

[TheWraith]

12. I think the theory was that as head of the DNC he made too many enemies in Congress

Both all the Republicans he worked to crush, and a fair number of Democrats who didn't like his style.

At least, that's the rationale presented in that story. I'm not sure if I buy it.

[ashling]

10. State - Richardson

otherwise I like yours +

EPA - Robert F. Kennedy

Secretary of the Interior: Daschle

Labor - James Galbraith