Choosing his team

Politics | Early picks suggest Obama “should keep reading his Lincoln” | Lynn Vincent

John Gress/Rapport/Newscom

Cabinet posts to fill: 15.

Political appointees to choose: 2,500.

Rumors flying over who President-elect Obama will pick to help him run the country: Infinite.

With numerous former Clinton officials already named, the rifest rumor is that what many hoped would be a second Clinton presidency may well be one—but without any Oval Office Clintons.

That, said American Enterprise Institute visiting scholar Gerard Alexander, may be better news than many people think. "The very distinctive thing that Clinton did differently is that his policymaking was in many ways quite centrist," said Alexander, who also teaches political science at the University of Virginia. The gene pool of potential cabinet candidates is much "wider than the Clinton administration. If Obama wanted to choose people farther to the left of the Clinton administration, he could be doing that. But so far he isn't."