BARACK OBAMA will meet former rival John McCain today as the president-elect puts together his White House team amid mounting speculation about a possible role for Hillary Clinton, writes Denis Staunton
Mr Obama is not expected to ask Mr McCain to join the administration but today's meeting in Chicago could help the incoming president to turn his recent adversary into an important ally in the Senate. As a Republican who has worked closely with Democrats on everything from immigration reform to climate change, Mr McCain could offer great help to Mr Obama in advancing his agenda.
The president-elect announced three White House appointments yesterday, naming Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff, as senior advisor, and Mona Sutphen and Jim Messina as deputy chiefs of staff.
Speculation continued to rage, however, over the prospect that Mr Obama will appoint Mrs Clinton as secretary of state. Numerous Democratic sources have confirmed that when they met in Chicago last Thursday the president-elect asked Mrs Clinton if she would be interested in the post.
Mr Obama has also discussed the job with New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, and Massachusetts senator John Kerry has long been regarded as a contender.
Henry Kissinger, who served as secretary of state under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, yesterday described Mrs Clinton as an excellent choice for the job.
"She is a lady of great intelligence, demonstrated enormous determination and would be an outstanding appointment," he told the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit in New Delhi.
"If it is true, it will show a couple of things. It shows great courage on the part of the president-elect to appoint a very strong personality, who has an independent constituency, into a cabinet position. It also shows willingness on the part of Clinton to subordinate herself to someone whom she lost out to."
The prospect of Mrs Clinton as secretary of state has also been welcomed by some of her Senate colleagues, including Arizona's Jon Kyl, the second-ranking Republican senator.
"It seems to me she's got the experience, she's got the temperament for it," he told Fox New yesterday.
"She would be well received around the world."
Mrs Clinton would, however, face confirmation hearings in the Senate, where former president Bill Clinton's foreign business links could come under scrutiny. Mr Clinton has declined to make public the list of donors to his charitable foundation but the New York Times reported earlier this year that a Canadian financier contributed more than $30 million after the former president helped him to secure a uranium deal in Kazakhstan.
In an interview with CBS News last night, Mr Obama said he had been studying the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, who brought former adversaries into his cabinet to form a team of rivals.
"I've been spending a lot of time reading Lincoln," he said.
"There is a wisdom there and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was president, that I just find very helpful."
Mr Obama said he was using the two months before his inauguration to work with deliberation to put together a team to deal with the formidable challenges he will face next year.
"I will say that the challenges that we're confronting are enormous. And they're multiple," he said.
"And so there are times during the course of a given day where you think, 'Where do I start in terms of moving - moving things forward?' And I think that part of this next two months is to really get a clear set of priorities, understanding we're not going to be able to do everything at once, making sure the team is in place, and moving forward in a very deliberate way and sending a clear signal to the American people that we're going to be thinking about them and what they're going through."