BARACK OBAMA and John McCain have met for the first time since the presidential election, promising to work together to tackle the economic and security challenges facing the United States.
The president-elect greeted his former Republican rival at the presidential transition team headquarters in Chicago, praising Mr McCain for his "outstanding service" to the country.
"We're going to have a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country," Mr Obama said.
In a joint statement after the meeting, the two men said they shared a joint commitment to changing the political culture in Washington and to a bipartisan approach to solving the country's problems.
"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time," they said.
"It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hard-working American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation's security."
The meeting came as speculation about Mr Obama's cabinet continued to focus on a possible role as secretary of state for former first lady Hillary Clinton.
Democratic sources suggested that Mr Obama wanted to offer Ms Clinton the job and that she was keen to accept but that questions remained over potential conflicts of interest surrounding foreign donors to former president Bill Clinton's charitable foundations.
The Clinton Global Initiative, which works to eradicate Aids,malaria and poverty in Africa, has raised more than $30 billion since 2005 and has received major donations from foreign governments, including a $1 billion pledge from Norway last year.
Mr Clinton, who has refused to reveal donors to the initiative and his library foundation, suggested in Kuwait at the weekend that he would like his wife to serve in Mr Obama's administration.
"If he decided to ask her and they did it together, I think she'll be really great as a secretary of state," the former president said.
"She worked very hard for his election after the primary fight with him, and so did I, and we were very glad that he won and we have a lot of confidence that he can do a good job. But she didn't do what she did with the hope or expectation of getting any kind of job offer, much less having this discussed."
Mrs Clinton's hopes of leading a Senate initiative to reform the healthcare system received a blow when veteran Democratic senator Edward Kennedy made clear that he plans to take the lead on the issue as chairman of the health committee.
Mr Kennedy, who has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, returned to work on Capitol Hill yesterday for the first time since last July.
The Massachusetts senator said he was looking forward to working on a new economic stimulus package and predicted that Mr Obama would move quickly to provide universal access to healthcare.
"Barack has indicated that this would be a prime issue, and I believe that it will be," he said.
"The president-elect said that this is going to be a priority and I certainly hope it will . . . I think we've got a good start on it."
Mr Obama, who will be sworn in as president on January 20th, resigned his Senate seat with effect from Sunday. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who has said he will appoint a successor by the end of this year, is under pressure to choose an African-American because Mr Obama was the only black member of the US Senate.
Among the names believed to be under consideration are congressmen Jesse Jackson jnr and Danny Davis and Illinois Senate president Emil Jones, who was Mr Obama's political godfather before the president-elect moved to Washington as a senator.