Now that we know the identities of the two final Obama cabinet members, I have to say that I'm impressed with the makeup of this crew as a whole, and it ought to be a good team for Obama to lead into battle. Hilda Solis interests me (and lots of union types love her already)--it seems like a good idea to put people like Solis and Tom Daschle into roles where they not only have skills but believe very deeply in the mission of the department in question. Something tells me that we'll see some big reforms on health care and labor law during this administration.
But I'm liking this team for now. A lot of the picks are particularly savvy--putting a pro-transit Republican as SecTrans is a sign that Obama's vision includes more public transit, and that he's interested in trying to reach out to Republicans on it. I also think that the cabinet strikes a good balance between experienced veterans (like Gates and Clinton) and fresh faces (like Solis, Tim Geithner and Arne Duncan). Most of the picks are technocratic, which is good, and the political picks (like Bill Richardson) are in positions that actually suit them pretty well. All in all, it's not exactly a left-wing cabinet, but there aren't any real troublemakers that I can see.
The way I see it, most of Obama's challenges are going to be in economic and foreign policy. And his teams in those respective fields should serve him well. Luckily, Obama has largely shut out the liberal hawks on his national security team--he's got a genuine progressive in Susan Rice at the UN, and realists Jim Jones and Bob Gates as National Security Advisor and Defense Secretary. Hillary Clinton is the exception, but her "tough" rhetoric during the primaries seems like more of a put-on than anything else, and if having her in the cabinet means co-opting the most high-profile liberal hawk so as to cut off that movement as a credible in-house insurrection, then so be it.
Obama's economic team is impressive as well. Geithner is a moderate who has come to see the light on big stimulus at this point. Larry Summers is another moderate who has become a strongly progressive voice on inequality. And Hilda Solis ought to be a strong advocate of organized labor. The only exception is Bill Richardson at Commerce, who often echoes New Dem sorts of ideas. Still, having one of them in the cabinet is unavoidable, and it's not as though their insight is never worth having.
So, all in all, I'm happy with how things have turned out with the cabinet. Only a month and two days left until they're in action!
