PREPARING FOR THE WHITE HOUSE:IF HE IS elected to the presidency, Barack Obama and his advisers have promised to bring bipartisanship and experience to his administration.
Yesterday the Democrat, in acknowledging his endorsement from Republican former secretary of state Colin Powell, said he would call on him for advice.
"He will have a role as one of my advisers," Obama said on NBC's Today. "Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss."
Advisers suggest that among those who would be considered for cabinet-level positions are two Republicans, Senators Richard G Lugar and Chuck Hagel.
A leading candidate for White House chief of staff is Tom Daschle, the former Democratic Senate majority leader, but there could be dark-horse candidates, including representative Rahm Emanuel, a close Obama adviser from Illinois, who worked for President Bill Clinton.
Several advisers to Obama also said the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, could be on the shortlist to become secretary of state.
Obama has already turned to veterans of the Clinton White House for guidance, tasking former chief of staff John Podesta, now head of a prominent liberal think tank, to co-ordinate his preliminary transition efforts.
Leading the effort to decide personnel is Cassandra Butts, a law-school friend of Obama and an associate at Podesta's Centre for American Progress.
As he prepares to try and end the war in Iraq and shift the military's emphasis to Afghanistan, Obama would have to quickly fill the top Pentagon job, either by leaving the current defence secretary Robert Gates in place, or by choosing a new one, such as Senator Jack Reed, co-author of the Senate Democrats Iraq withdrawal plan.
In addition to defence, the top three cabinet positions that advisers said are a priority are attorney general, secretary of state and, perhaps most pressing, treasury secretary.
Obama already consults a core group of economic and financial advisers, some of whom could become fixtures in his administration. The group consists of former treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers, former Clinton economic adviser Gene Sperling, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and Michael Froman, who was Rubin's chief of staff at treasury.
Summers's name has surfaced as a contender for his former post, while Froman could also join the White House team. Another contender for the treasury job is Timothy Geithner, the Federal Reserve Bank president who worked under Rubin and Summers.
Other names in the mix would include Arizona governor Janet Napolitano and former deputy attorney general Eric Holder as candidates for attorney general and a pair of former National Security Council members, Susan Rice and James Steinberg, as candidates for national security adviser. - ( Los Angeles Times- Washington Post service)