As our fellow Swingnuts are well aware, President-elect Obama’s cabinet appointments can and likely will have big reprecussions for downballot races throughout the nation in coming years. So James and I, out of a deep desire to help John Podesta and his extremely busy transition team, have put together the following list of suggestions so that Obama can, well, maximize his impact on the country:
Secretary of Interior: Mark Begich
Secretary of Defense: Ike Skelton
Secretary of Commerce: Byron Dorgan
Attorney General: Charlie Justice
Patent Office Commissioner: Jim Matheson
FCC Commissioner: Jeff Van Drew
SEC Commissioner: Walt Minnick
EPA Administrator: Kathy Dahlkemper
OMB Director: Alex Sink
White House Chaplain: Tom Perriello
Drug Czar: Paul Carmouche
What other good ideas do you guys have?
Steve Kagen
Skelton is better suited for Veterans affairs. Wait..,is this list a joke to see how much Obama can make the midterms tougher for dems?
Secretary of the Navy
Give the other job to Charlie Melancon!
Tom Daschle Health and Human Services
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin USDA
Oh, wait…
on your list. How about:
Sec of Energy Mary Landreu
Sec of Transportation Kay Hagan
Sec of Agriculture Nelson (either one)
Sec of Education Nelson (the other one)
Jim Marshall, John Barrow, Heath Shuler, all four Arkansas Democrats, Joe Manchin…
First off, nearly half your picks have either just been elected, not yet elected (Carmouche), or if selected their seat falls to the GOP (Ike Skelton’s district for example). And Mark Begich? The guy just got elected to the Senate; do you really want Sarah Palin to be in the Senate?
Here are my picks for cabinet (I’ll do the ones I know enough info about to make a pick)
Interior Sec. Dave Freudenthal
Defense Sec. Robert Gates (FYI, he’s not even a Republican!)
Commerce Sec. Olympia Snowe (hello Maine Senate seat pick up!)
Attorney Gen. Patrick Fitzgerald or David Iglesias
EPA Administrator Arnold Schwarzenegger or Al Gore
White House Chaplain? My old pastor! (I won’t say his name because I don’t want to get him in trouble! Let’s just say he’s from Rhode Island)
Drug Czar? How about my old dealer? KIDDING!!!!
Can’t leave out Kathleen Sebilias. lol she should just be the White House Nanny or some other useless shit… lol
USDA: Jon Tester
Defense: Jim Webb
Mark Begich? Jim Matheson? Walt Minnick? Alex Sink? Byron Dorgan???
WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU WANT TO TAKE THOSE WHO MANAGED TO DO THE NIGH IMPOSSIBLE — to win victories as Democrats running for Congress in deep, deep red areas of the country (many of them, quite recently) — and very likely cede those seats back to the Republicans when they have to be filled as open seats?
The same goes for Tom Perriello, Kathy Dahlkemper, and Jeff Van Drew.
Silly me… I thought this site was about winning races in purple and red states and districts, not engaging in the same speculation every other political blog in the world is doing. That’s part of why I post here. This post is making me begin to reconsider a little, but hopefully this is an outlier, and sanity will resume shortly. I can forgive you guys for catching the Obama administration hype fever, but only if you get over your case of it quickly.
thanks. gave my tipsy self a good chuckle 🙂
whatever, we dont really need the AZ seat anyway. well, i spose i may be speaking too soon with the hopes of all the other seats we could gain, but none of those could materialize i spose.
Cabinet Secretary: Barack Obama.
Treasury Secretary: Rep. Bill Jefferson.
Security Advisor: Sen. Patrick Leahy
Secretary of Veteran Affairs: Sen. Jack Reed (hello Senator Lafferty)
Secretary of Commerce: Gov. Ed Rendell
United State Trade Representative: Sen. Kent Conrad
Secretary of Transportation: Sen. Evan Bayh
FAA Director: Sen. Bill Nelson
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development: Tim Kaine
followed after he is swarn in by….
NCIS Director: Sen. James Webb.
Seriously this isn’t even funny. Because of one pick and another that’s in the air now were mocking and poking fun at Obama just because he chose the Governor of Arizona to head Homeland Security and possible another from a red state or a red district to head the Ag department. So what because he picked Napolitano that this takes the Arizona Senate race out of play. First off it wasn’t a sure thing that just because she would beat McCain and I don’t care what one poll said, polls don’t mean crap. If they were accurate then Paul Kanjorski would of lost to Lou Barletta, John Murtha would of narrowly instead of winning in a blowout, Ethan Berkowitz would of beaten Don Young etc. Puls if you would of read the Politico article about Janet getting picked to be the head of Homeland Security it said that she wouldn’t of ran for the Senate if McCain wasn’t retireing.
As for the two he has in mind to be heading the Ag department, we won’t know for sure until the pick is offical. I think this pretty childish by all of you for poking fun of a man because of a godamn Senate race. I want competant people in Obama’s cabinet and Janet Napolitano is a competant person to be running Homeland Secruity. I guess this isn’t “change” for all of you and I guess in the eye of the netroots Obama has a 10 percent approval rating because of this.
Maybe Akaka and Inouye could co-chair Veterans Affairs and we could see Sens. Lingle and, umm, well, are there any other Republicans left in Hawaii?
Also, I can’t believe y’all are forgetting future Assistant Attorney General of the DOJ’s Criminal Division Bobby Bright.
Obama picks one person who might be a potential Senate candidate, and suddenly the sky is falling. If Napolitano accepts the job, it seems to me that means she wouldn’t want to challenge McCain in 2010.
You know, if all you want is craven political choices, let’s put Jim Inhofe as head of the EPA. It would be a disaster, but at least we’d get a Senate seat out of it!
I think we’re being a bit short-sighted here. As someone already commented – the single biggest determinative factor of the 2010 midterms is going to be the performance of the Obama Administration. As hackneyed a meme as it is by now, he’s going for the most competent possible governing team, and though it may cost us a handful of slots in the short-term, I imagine it will have significant dividends in coming cycles that otherwise could have been veritable bloodbaths. I’m as annoyed as everyone about the Napolitano pick… but come on. She can still run in 2012 against Kyl (who in my determination is probably more vulnerable anyway), and our forfeiture of the AZ governorship was probably just pre-empting the inevitable. Moreover, this will spare her from having to take responsibility for the plummeting state economy (housing market in particular), and will boost her national security bona fides. (Remember, too, that since 2006 the GOP has made NO net gains in gubernatorial terms — they took Louisiana, we took Kentucky, we took Missouri, they’ll take Arizona). And beyond that? In the event of a Sebelius pick, the lieutenant governor is a Democrat (formerly moderate Republican). It’s purely speculative at this point that Herseth-Sandlin or Peterson will get tapped for USDA (Vilsack still seems to be the prohibitive favorite), and David Paterson is enough of a party player that I suspect he’s looking at electability above all other qualities in a successor to Hillary (hence my putting my chips at this point on Brian Higgins… with NY-27 being conveniently a fairly safe district for us).
That having been said… my contribution would be Lincoln Davis as head of the Office of Faith-Based Initiative.
Head of NASA.
I highly doubt that Napolitano would have run against McCain anyway. Even in the weakened state he’s in, he could still beat her. Whoever said the seat would have been hers is either overly optimistic or incredibly naive. She would more likely run against Kyl (who is considerably weaker).
As much as I like SSP, I am VERY disappointed in this fit of childishness. Deride me as humorless (I usually am–try living through some of the stuff I have and see if you would), but behavior like this is why the blogosphere is such a helpful punching bag for the pundits. Most of the time, they’re nothing more than idiots who are paid to blather on TV, but they gain credibility with behavior like this. While not as explosive as the Lieberman Temper Tantrum, this is another symptom of that kind of immaturity. If you want to be taken seriously, I would drop this juvenile way of acting.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
harry reid: secretary of balloon doggies.
GOVERNMENT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN POLITICS
I really appreciate the sense of humor of the original blog, and the recommendations of the posters who realize this list is a joke.
Joking aside, maybe, just maybe, president-elect Barack Obama is more concerned about having the federal government run smoothly than whether a moderate Democrat can hold onto a Congressional seat in a district that leans Republican.
Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Obama believes that strong leadership can prevent terrible things like, you know, the horrible treatment that veterans experienced at Walter Reed Hospital or a major city being flushed down the toilet.
Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Obama understands that it requires far more skill to run large Cabinet departments than to be a politican who votes his way and has the political talent to be re-elected.
Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Obama believes that very talented members of Congress should be rewarded for their talent and promoted instead of being held back because of petty partisanship.
Please think about the one president who did NOT promote talented people because of his fear that his political party would be hurt in Congress. That president is named George Bush, Jr.
I don’t know whether Janet Napolitano will be an oustanding Secretary of Homeland Security or Chet Edwards will be an excellent Secretary of Veterans Affairs, but hopefully Mr. Obama is astute enough to deduce whether they will be.
We as a nation need strong, effective leaders in important positions. Thank you.
Shalom,
ZWrite
Sorry I was short with everyone earlier. I didn’t have class today, and I went to this site first thing after waking up (not a good idea). Maybe I was hungry (I didn’t get around to breakfast to just a few minutes ago) but anyway…
Here are my picks, only these ones are serious ones (hey, I was born without a funny bone ;-))….
Secretary of Agriculture: Jim Hightower
Secretary of Transportation: Earl Blumenauer
Secretary of the Interior: Jay Inslee (1st term), Brian Schweitzer (2nd term)
EPA Administrator: Lincoln Chafee
Forgive my ignorance, but who are Charlie Justice and Jeff Van Drew? Neither name rings a bell. Having said that, the name Charlie Justice would be very apprapos for AG, or better yet, SCOTUS. Imagine it: Justice Justice!
no one said Napolitano had the seat in the bag, it was merely noted that she was the only one who had a shot at this seat.
Although, I guess I’d rather see McCain just retire in peace at some point and not get defeated in 2010. He is a huge dumb ass who picked Sarah Palin and that made me lose all respect for him as a presidential candidate, but that’s over and hopefully he’ll make more sound choices and get that respect back
But seriously, I don’t think that getting all bent out of shape over Napolitano (when the chances are very good that she was never going to challenge McCain anyways) and the rumors about Hersth and Peterson (which, quite frankly, like the whole Chet Edwards VP thing, could very easily be an attempt to simply raise their stature in their respective districts, and in Hersth’s case, could make it easier to run for governor or Senator [if Thune runs for Governor, Hersth will run for Senate, and I’ll bet anyone here a hundred dollars on that]).
I think we all need to chill out over this, and understand that people like Napolitano and Sebelius were always pretty high possibilities for getting cabinet level positions.
Secretary of indian affairs: Earl Pomeroy
Ben Chandler to head the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission
US Ambassador to Canada Gene Taylor
Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s Carol Shea-Porter
Secretary of Energy Lincoln Davis
National Security Advisor Rick Boucher
US Trade Representative Jim Marshall
US Ambassador to Ireland Frank Kratovil
US Ambassador to Italy Tom Perriello
People have said she’d be likely to join the administration all year. We might as well get the hand-wringing over with now.
link
We’re all pissed about the Napolitano pick and the potential pick of either Peterson or Herseth-Sandlin for Secretary of AG and we’re joking about how to screw the Democratic congress over by picking senators in states with a Republican governor or Democrats in Republican tilted districts.
Tim Mahoney for Secretary of State!
Bill Jefferson for Secretary of the Treasury!
Eliot Spitzer for Attorney General!
Cindy Sheehan for Secretary of Defense!
laughed off stage
Seriously, though, everyone who’s still concerned about the Napolitano pick should take a chill pill. After all, McCain is among the Senators who give the Republican caucus the biggest headaches; it’s not too bad even if we do let him hang around. And as people have mentioned, Jan Brewer is vulnerable to a strong Democratic challenge, not to mention that Arizonans’ experience with Napolitano will help.
And everyone who’s offended by this thread needs to take TWO chill pills. And go count some Lizard People ballots.