Obama 'to pick Arizona governor' for security post

US President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the US Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano…

US President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the US Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, CNN reported today, citing several sources.

The Democratic governor, a supporter and campaigner for Mr Obama's presidential campaign, had been reported to be on a short list of people to fill cabinet posts in the new administration.

CNN also reported that Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker was Mr Obama's pick for commerce secretary.

Yesterday Mr Obama selected former senator Tom Daschle to be his health secretary.

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The selection of Mr Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader and part of Mr Obama's inner circle, signaled an intention by the Democratic president-elect to make an aggressive push to overhaul the healthcare system.

Another member of Mr Obama's close-knit inner-circle, David Axelrod, was named senior White House adviser, according to an announcement from the president-elect's transition team.

Mr Axelrod, who was Obama's strategist during the campaign and has been a political consultant for a long list of prominent Democratic politicians, was seen as a crucial player behind Obama's comfortable win over Republican John McCain in the November 4th presidential race.

Mr Obama is likely to rely heavily on Mr Axelrod for advice in pushing an agenda of healthcare reform, middle-class tax breaks and other domestic priorities, as he prepares to inherit a deepening financial crisis and a ballooning budget deficit.

Greg Craig, a former special counsel to Mr Clinton who defended him during his impeachment troubles, will become White House counsel when Mr Obama takes office on January 20th.

Mr Daschle served almost two decades in the Senate and was majority leader from 2001 to 2003 while Democrats controlled the chamber. He has served as a mentor to the president-elect, having encouraged him early on to run for the White House and advised him during the campaign.

The agency he will lead oversees programs such as Medicare, the federal health insurance plan for people over the age of 65, which is expected to see costs balloon as the US population ages.

The department is likely to spearhead Mr Obama's charge to expand healthcare coverage to 47 million uninsured Americans, a key promise of his presidential campaign.

Another Democrat passionate about healthcare reform, New York Senator Hillary Clinton, was weighing the option of becoming secretary of state or staying in the Senate, where she could help advance domestic policies.

Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, offered to allow ethics reviews of future business and charitable activities should she be picked by Mr Obama to take the foreign policy post, Democrats familiar with the issue said.

The former president is working to address questions about whether his philanthropic and business work would create the appearance of a conflict of interest in the event his wife got the job.

"He is definitely helping. He is not an obstacle at all," a Democrat familiar with the situation said.

Mr Obama continued to assemble his White House team from his transition offices in Chicago, where he held private meetings yesterday with Vice President-elect Joe Biden and others.

He added a handful of former Clinton administration aides to his team, including Daniel Tarullo, Susan Rice and James Steinberg, to advise him on policy matters as he prepares for his move to the White House.

Mr Obama, who will succeed President George W. Bush on January 20th, released a list of names of people who will head "policy working groups" during the next two months of the presidential transition.

Many of the names were people in the running for top jobs in the incoming administration.

Reuters