Obama Transition Team Named

Barack Obama has named his entire transition team -- formally organized as the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501(c)(4) organization. The work of this entity will be overseen by three co-chairs: former White House chief of staff John Podesta, Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, and Obama's current chief of staff Pete Rouse.

The co-chairs will be assisted by an advisory board comprised of Carol Browner, William Daley, Christopher Edley, Michael Froman, Julius Genachowski, Donald Gips, Governor Janet Napolitano, Federico Peña, Susan Rice, Sonal Shah, Mark Gitenstein, and Ted Kaufman. Gitenstein and Kaufman will serve as co-chairs of Vice President-elect Biden's transition team.

Supervising the day-to-day activities of the transition will be the Transition Senior Staff:

Chris Lu - Executive Director

Dan Pfeiffer - Communications Director

Stephanie Cutter - Chief Spokesperson

Cassandra Butts - General Counsel

Jim Messina - Personnel Director

Patrick Gaspard - Associate Personnel Director

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Christine Varney - Personnel Counsel

Melody Barnes - Co-Director of Agency Review

Lisa Brown - Co-Director of Agency Review

Phil Schiliro - Director of Congressional Relations

Michael Strautmanis - Director of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs

Katy Kale - Director of Operations

Brad Kiley - Director of Operations

Read about Obama's Cabinet on HuffPost's Big News page.

Comments

[Yorksgal]

Hey, does he need a good Exec. Asst. - I would love to work in his administration - how great would that be?

[kimbari]

I hear ya! I'm 53, though. I'm pretty sure I'm too old to keep up. ;)

[ElBruce]

I've been working on my Cabinet Dream Team list. Criteria: known name, good at that thing, no major skeletons.

Here's what I got so far:

Chief of Staff: Rahm Emanuel (check!)
State: Hillary Clinton; bring Bill on trips
Treasury: Paul Krugman, while his Nobel still has that new-car smell.
Defense: Colin Powell, yo. Use him for what he's good at.
Interior: Al Gore. Put your money where your PowerPoint is and get to work.
Press Secretary: Rachel Maddow, for the most pleasant press conferences evar.
SEC Chair: Ralph Nader, beeYOTCH!
Commerce: ?
Attorney General: ?

What's yours?

[ChessLover4Obama]

Love every pick.

Attorney General: David C. Iglesias of New Mexico...TAKE THAT BUSH!!!

Commerce: Paul Krugman

Treasury: Warren Buffet

[JDJase]

lol @ Iglesias...that would be a good kick in bush's balls

[ENOS]

Warren as treasurer would be epic. Hiring the riching man in the nation to secure our funds. Brilliant! And Warren's such a lovable Elite!!!! One of a kind!

[hardesty]

I liked John Edwards for Attorney General until he used the wrong head for thinking. Maybe Claire MacCaskill? I agree with Paul Krugman for Treasury-someone with an econ degree instead of a Wall Street degree (and there's something about him...tweed is hot!). I like Rachel for Press Secretary but who would we watch at 9:00? Totally selfish on my part. I had thought Chuck Hagel for defense, but... I like your pick, too. Commerce? I was thinking of the labor union guy who gave the rockin speech on race a few weeks ago (I can't remember his name). How will we act with smart people running the show!?

[weatherwaxx]

John Edwards would still probably be a good Atty. General. Hell, McCain whored around in South America, stole his second wife from a buddy, dumped his first wife because she'd been hurt and wasn't a Barbie-doll anymore -- if we cleared Washington of every person who ever screwed up sexually, there'd probably be 3 people left on Capitol Hill.

I'm guessing President-Elect Obama has better insight and better picks than any of us would... though I do want to see Al Gore in that Cabinet!

[UWNBM]

I dislike Claire McCaskill intensely...she had no problem taking cash for securing her support as a superdelegate for Obama...therefore, she is another craven politician that screams OLD politics, not new...

[CinciKid]

i love the pick of Rahm and Paul Krugman, but forget the rest. There are way too many smart, energetic people out there to choose than to reach back for retreads.

[UWNBM]

Rahm is one of the worst examples of craven partisans around...it sends an awful message that Obama is seeking abrasive, bare-knuckles, sleazy Chicago politicians into the fray....NOT a sign of reaching across the aisle...TERRIBLE idea.

[nclayla]

I absolutely LOVE most of your picks, but Hillary Clinton and Ralph Nader??

One thing we can probably all agree on: O will continue to use the same judgment and insight he has displayed so far and his selections will all be good, if not fantastic!

[UWNBM]

Hillary offers a lot...get over it...Nader is a little iffy.

[fishgirl26]

My list:

Secretary of State: Bill Richardson (as clinton put it...bad guys like him for some reason)
Sec of Energy: Al Gore
Treasury: Krugman!!!! (that's 2 nobel prize winners already!)
Defense: Chuck Hagel
Press Secretary: Totally agree w/ Maddow...or Robert Gibbs (I have a secret crush on him)
Attorney General: David Iglasius--I really like him or
Commerce: hmmm....that's a toughie. Maybe Bloomberg???
Education: Caroline Kennedy
EPA: Robert Kennedy
Health and Human Services: MICHELLE OBAMA--she's been around the health care industry and also has a great understanding of the need for human services in her work in Chicago.

I truly see a Lincolnesque "team of rivals". Dick Luger, Schwartzenegger in some capacity (don't worry Ah-nold...Caroline and Maria will find you a job!)

[UWNBM]

I like some of your choices...but Rachel Maddow would not be good as press secretary...she doesn't have a level of maturity needed...not that any of Bush's press sec.'s did...!

[ASocEX]

So, so far we have:

Rahm Emanuel - Clinton aide and DLCer
John Podesta - Clinton Chief of Staff
Federico Pena - Clinton transportation secretary
William Daley - Clinton commerce secretary

That's change we can believe in!

[IluvAmerica NOW]

Oh please...if McCain won. The list would look like this:

Todd Palin - Head of Secret Police...excuse me Internal Security
NAME - Regan official
NAME - Bush 2 official
NAME - Bush 1 official
NAME - Nixon official

You see my logic. For all the BS about Joe The Plumber, when it comes to staffing, regardless of party: they're going to pick people with past experience. Probably either 70/30 or 60/40 new and old administration ratios.

[zendem1]

Yea, well good to use what's been proven to work. At least we're through trolling Nixon's vomit.

[dct1999]

Wow, transition team members with white house experience. Oh the humanity.

[UWNBM]

My, and they were mostly Clintonites...how AWFUL is that?
I wouldn't call it change, but I would call it acknowledging what Clinton did get right in his administration...except for Emanuel...too much a Chicago partisan...

[Buddhabman]

Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is exactly what a well oiled, efficient Presedential Cabinet needs. The guy is smart, tough, no nonsense and he and Obama see eye to eye on almost everything. It's was so funny how the right tried to paint Obama as a skinny wimp, him and Emanueal are skinny but tough as stud nails. Emanuel is smarter than Karl Rove, but far less divisive, but he can wield the brass knuckles if pushed.

[UWNBM]

Rahm not divisive? Many would beg to differ...the WORST choice he could make...stop trying to give paybacks to Chicago sleaze and go for fresh guns!

[kellygrrrl]

Gov. Janet is going to take McCain's Senate seat in 2 years!

[JDJase]

I love Janet thats why I'm so torn...I would love for her to be AG, but at the same time she's the only Dem in Arizona that could beat McCain. what to do, what to do?!?!

[zendem1]

Janet needs to stay where she is. She's needed there until that Senate seat comes open.

[UWNBM]

She doesn't impress...whatever!

[dangeresque]

I hope Janet Napolitano gets the nod for Attorney General, she'd be a great choice. She's been an excellent governor here in AZ. The selection of Rahm Emanuel is an epic fail by Obama. No change there at all, that's a bailout profiteer and hawkish Middle Eastern policy advocate.

[joebhed]

Amen to that.

[TommyObama]

Sadly, Janet's departure will leave us with the very right wing Jan Brewer (Sec of State) assuming the Governor's office, much as Rose Mofford did when Evan Meacham was removed in the late 80s.

And we didn't get a Democratic state house or senate last night to ward off the damages. But Janet can't wait around PHX forever, and perhaps a couple of years of Brewer, combined with the still very unreconstructed Arizona GOP house and senate, can do for PHX what Bush & Co. has now done for DC: Turn it blue.

[truthseeker7]

continued from my previous post - Read about what Lincoln did during the Civil War. Rather than borrow money from east coast and European bankers to fight the south (who did borrow money from them) he printed his own money and guaranteed it with the hard work and future productivity of the US worker. That is what needs to be done NOW. FDR should have done it but he borrowed it from the banks for the New Deal. Read about it people. Your children and grandchildren's future depends upon it.

[joebhed]

Your mention of FDRs and the fact that he had a shot at solving the Federal Reserve problem once and for all, reminds of the parallel timeframe.
After the election FDR appointed the "brain trust" for monetary policy that resulted in the presentation by the Chicago School economists of their plan for monetary reform.
All of Obama's financial advisors have gone to the current 'free-market' business school.
Theirs will be a tax and fiscal policy approach.
The reason FDR had the imperative to appoint the Chicago Plan economists to the task was that we had already come through the crash.
We have not yet come to the crash.
And we seem to believe that because of the FDR social safety net programs, especially deposit and unemployment insurance, that we cannot get back to a crash.
So, we are not thinking in terms of a crash.
There is no exit strategy.
We have not yet realized the major effects of the financial fallout that is yet to run.
But Obama will certainly have the best shot at restoring the people's money power, as provided in the Constitution, of any prez since FDR.
They're just waiting for the crash to begin their planning.

[seachild]

wait...what about THE HILLS HAVE EYES?...i mean, Hillary Clinton?...

[truthseeker7]

I understand that Tim something currently with the NY Federal Reserve Bank may be asked to be Treasury Secretary. You may as well ask Dick Cheney to run the CIA too. Take a deep breath folks but the issues between the Dems and Repubs or liberals and conservatives are all pocket change compared to the problem with our monetary policy. This is issue is so big that no one really wants to address it and the the folks who really run this country, the central banks for the US and Europe, want us to be so involved with solving the "smaller" problems of war, health care, unemployment, etc. that we never do address it. They keep us fighting amongst ourselves so that nothing will ever get done.

Please learn about this country's monetary policy - one good book is Web of Debt to understand how we can REALLY make this a better country for everyone and how we can redistribute wealth through fair competition. The bailout that the new Treasury Secretary will oversee is just the Federal Reserve (a bunch of private bankers) creating money out thin air, loaning it to the US government (the american taxpayer) at some level of interest, so that the Us government can then loan that money to other bankers and Wall Street. All the while the US taxpayer is paying the interest on it all right back to the Federal Reserve who made the money up in the first place.

[ThunderclapNewman]

WooWoo alert!

[NoSillyName]

Ah! Federico! Loved him when he was my Mayor of Denver!

[TakeNoNeoConPrisoners]

One of the 1-st priorities in a new Obama admin is to get his A.J. to investigate the previous admin for illegal, unconstitutional behavior in office and then file charges against whoever wherever the cards fall. This should sent shock waves down the neo cons spineless backbone and serve justice at the same time. Someone or ones have to answers for all the criminal behavior in the past 8 years. This is not a witch hunt but a call to honor the Constituion. Gonzoles-gate, Pflame-gate, Iraq-gate, Blackwater-gate, Haliburton-gate, war-profiteering-gate, Gitmo-gate, torture-gate, Habeus Corpus-gate, wiretapping w/o FISA approval-gate and the list just goes on and on. Justice MUST be served and the Constitution restored to its proper importance. There are many dead Iraqi women and children and our own US military that are crying out for justice. There are so many violations of the law by gov't official also demanding justice. We must restore the rule of law in this country that no man not even the president is above the law. Obama, I beg you to do the right thing here and I will have immense respect for you and others who make this happen.

[kellygrrrl]

I wonder who O will name as Attorney General. Someone whose got a score to settle.

[madisonhack]

Can you imagine Attorney General Russ Feingold? I'm sure Govenor Doyle of WI would name a good Democrat as a replacement. Release the Hound, say I!

[PineyWoods]

You are talking about witch hunts, and we don't have time for them. Let's wake up and get real. Obama has limited time and energy to push his agenda through. Whatever doesn't get done in the first nine months of his administration may never get done, given the way the modern presidency works. So he doesn't have time to waste playing partisan games. That's not what I voted for, and I doubt that's what most people voted for. Fix the economy, get us out of Iraq, move us towards energy efficiency and independence, make education more affordable, get us some health care. That's all he needs to be working on right now. All that other nonsense, we don't have time for it.

[weatherwaxx]

Allowing war crimes to go unnoticed is equivalent to approving of them. I don't think that should be the first or only priority, but you can't build a sound foundation on a burial pit.

[freedomthrutruth]

You sound like Nancy Pelosi who steadfastly refused to put impeachment on the table even though countless acts of criminal abuse were committed by the Bush administration and cataloged and read in Congress by Dennis Kucinich. Sometimes human beings do not understand how important the prosecution and impeachment of criminals is unless the criminal acts themselves directly affect them. If someone breaks into your house and steals precious items, would you simply say that going after the criminals would look too much like a witch hunt, that pursuit of the criminals would be viewed as a "partisan game?" No, you'd want the full measure of the law to be used against such criminals so that no such crime would be committed again by those thieves. President Obama should possess the courage to act especially when the evidence is both overwhelming and outstanding. The whole world would prefer that these criminals not remain at large.

[MrJoyboy]

There should be no statute of limitations for the crimes committed from 2001 to 2008.Kind of like for the Nazis who were prosecuted decades after World War II.

[alkamm]

My sympathies exactly, but how do I express them? An old Kennedy maxim: DON'T GET MAD. GET EVEN.
The way to get even is to begin protecting the environment, reestablishing science by backing research with grants they call earmarks, attacking the corporate overlords that are even now using taxpayer money for the divine rights they take our money to be (may need all the courts we have for this one), reestablishing diplomacy and disestablishing the Iraqi war, nationalize oil and coal companies, running corporate insurance companies out of business by setting up Obama's alternative program that emphasizes prevention and early diagnoses rather than cutting services and denying claims.
So. The best defense is a good offense. Going forward, as they like to say.

[freedomthrutruth]

There may be a price to pay for allowing these criminals to run free without prosecution and conviction. Remember that career criminals are always plotting their next crime regardless of whether or not they possess the reigns of the presidency. To ignore all the crimes of these criminals is to permit them the luxury to plan and carry out the downfall of Barack Obama. On the other hand, Obama's effort to prosecute them might seem like a witch hunt of sorts especially if Obama's people fail to effectively communicate to the American people why prosecution is being pursued and the specific laws broken, particularly those relative to the Constitution. Prosecution should go hand-in-hand with the themes "Restoration of the Constitution" and "No one is above the law."

[PT6]

So pleased he is moving FAST!

In the meantime Bush is doing more damage:

1. Signing 90 directives to deregulate many more industries!
2. Mismanaging the $850 Billion Bailout!
3. Not taking advantage of Iraq wanting us out NOW!
4. Not regulating Wall Street and its "TRICKS' that they play every single day, especially Goldman Sacks!

I am sure BUSH can do even more damage in 75 days!

Obama's team must take optimal control of these and other issues and nullify the Bush team's actions for the sake of AMERICA's FUTURE.

[NoSillyName]

Bush can & will do all the damage he can. In spite of mouthing the lovely words written for him in the speech today.

[alkamm]

Send lawyers, guns, and money Obama! These foxes are on a deregulating tear outside the henhouses. Obama. A quick press conference emphasizing these deregulating abominations is necessary to save time. It's just like Bush, though, to put off the most egregious offenses till the end of his administration. I bet they did their college homework at the last minute too.

[BlueZoo]

Rep. Rahm Emmanuel just named Chief of Staff for President-Elect Obama! GREAT choice!

[ErnestineBass]

Pffffffffffffffffffffffffft.

[joebhed]

Agreed !

[Sweetfoot]

I expect to get a call any hour now asking me to join the team as well. As I've always said, I'm not looking for a job but if the President asks, I need to support him.

Obama T project
http://www.cafepress.com/democratdesign

[FirstForty]

We in Arizona will miss Janet. Her replacement will be Republican according to AZ laws. I dont know if it will result in a special eleciton. Janet has a great rep here. Top notch.

[BruceHNV]

Being on the transition team doesn't mean she's no longer Guv. She'd have to get a federal post for that to happen, and it would appear she's of breater value where she is for the time being - especially if she can run and unseat McCain in 2010.

[capitalismisntamoral]

No idea why people are suggesting she get McCain's seat.

Governor of AZ is a more powerful position than US Senator.

[mikeh41]

This is a transition team appointment, not cabinet & is temporary. She will not give up her post as Gov for this, or have to. I also live in AZ & agree with your other feeling. It's still a sad state for the politics here.