In Transition

Health and Human Services is set to go to former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, for example, and most of the major candidates who have been mentioned for Energy, Labor, Education, Interior, Housing and Urban Development, EPA, and Veterans’ Affairs are Democrats. Former Republican Rep. Jim Leach of Iowa has been mentioned as a possible Agriculture secretary, but he was such a borderline Republican during his House years, and spent so much time campaigning for Obama, that it’s not clear how much he’d add to the mix even if Obama chose him.

It might not be such an issue, except that Obama spent so much time on the campaign trail talking about his intention to have a bipartisan Cabinet and reach out to Republicans for ideas. He could be vague about what that meant, but when Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked Obama in late October if he wanted Republicans — plural — in his Cabinet, Obama replied, “Absolutely.”

Obama isn’t actually breaking new ground for Democratic presidents by picking a Republican Defense secretary. Bill Clinton had former Senator William Cohen in the same job, and John F. Kennedy had Robert McNamara. Plus, there’s the fact that Gates isn’t even a registered Republican. (Gates tried to clear the air yesterday at a Pentagon briefing by saying he didn’t register with a party during his CIA career because he wanted to stay apolitical, and added that “I consider myself a Republican.”)

Still, presidential scholars say it has been unusual for presidents to have more than one member of the other party in their Cabinet. (JFK had two: McNamara and Douglas Dillon, the Treasury secretary.) And they don’t think it’s realistic to expect Obama, no matter what he said on the campaign trail, to appoint Republicans who might fight him on the domestic issues that are so critical to a Democratic president’s legacy.

“It’s not a reasonable proposition,” said George C. Edwards, a presidential historian at Texas A&M University. “It would be highly unusual for a president to say, ‘Well, I’m really interested in health care, so I’m going to pick a Republican for HHS whose views don’t have anything to do with mine.’ Or Education. Or Labor, for God’s sake.”

Stephen Hess, a presidential expert at the Brookings Institution and author of “What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect,” said presidents tend to pick Cabinet members from the other party only if there’s a strong reason to do so, such as strengthening their bipartisan support after a close election. But it’s rare for those Cabinet secretaries to take central positions in the administration. President Bush, for example, picked Democrat Norm Mineta as his first Transportation secretary, but Mineta had virtually no impact on the administration’s most important policies.

Besides, with all of the other pressures Obama is facing — such as demands from Latinos for more representation besides Bill Richardson as Commerce secretary — “another Republican appointment is the least important,” Hess said.

— David Nather