Cabinet picks enhance Obama aura, for now

WASHINGTON - The cabinet that President-elect Barack Obama completed Friday is a largely centrist and pragmatic collection of politicians and technocrats without a pronounced ideological bent. Liberals are satisfied, but not delighted. Conservatives say the nominees are not as leftist as they had feared. Powerful interest groups with conflicting agendas are appeased.

But compared with what comes next, assembling the 15-member team was the easy part.

Obama wants this cabinet to market and put in place the most dramatic policy changes in the country since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal: a mammoth program to improve roads and bridges; a health-care system that covers more sick people at less cost; limitations on fossil fuels and greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate change; big investments in energy efficiency; middle-class tax cuts along with a tax hike on wealthy Americans.

For Obama to impose this ambitious agenda, he will make some people angry. And that will strain the coalition he has painstakingly built.

In the short term, Obama's cabinet nominations strengthen him politically. Even Capitol Hill Republicans say they are reassured.

"His appointments overall are such that he's lived up to the best expectations of his rhetoric," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.). "He's choosing intellectuals and scientists and other notables. . . . He's going to get the benefit of the doubt based on his appointments in many areas."

Obama has picked an eclectic group. There are women, Latinos, Westerners, several Bill Clinton appointees, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Bush holdover, Republicans, an African American (plus two other black people of cabinet rank, though not officially in the cabinet), free-traders, free-trade opponents and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

As a candidate, Obama often seemed reluctant to take concrete stands that might alienate important interest groups. Now that he is elected, some lobbyists and officials point to emerging signs that he's willing to disappoint his political base. They cite the announcement that the Rev. Rick Warren, who opposes gay marriage and abortion, will deliver the invocation at Obama's swearing-in ceremony. Gay-rights leaders and others criticized the choice, citing Warren's support for a California ballot proposition banning same-sex marriage. But Obama's willingness to endure the backlash may foreshadow battles ahead.

Peter Peyser, a Democratic lobbyist in Washington, said: "The Rick Warren controversy is a perfect example of what's probably coming. Instead of doing something for the gay and lesbian community, he is doing something that gets them ticked off. And I think that's indicative of his willingness to take on some of these groups in a way that tests their beliefs."

Obama's cabinet choices may help lessen ill will.

Consider free trade. Unions were a major help to Obama during the campaign. Many union officials are staunch opponents of the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it has cut employment and reduced wages. As a candidate, Obama seemed to straddle the NAFTA issue. And he chose as his chief trade representative Ron Kirk, a former Dallas mayor who has praised NAFTA. Kirk's appointment suggests Obama may not be so quick to rework the accord.

Even if Obama's trade policies anger labor leaders, his choice for Labor secretary will help keep his alliance intact. He picked Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D., Calif.), who has voted with labor nearly 100 percent of the time in her eight-year congressional career.

Union leaders concede they weren't pleased by the Kirk appointment and what it means for hopes of scuttling NAFTA. But they are thrilled with Solis.

Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO, said of Obama's cabinet: "There are certainly some members who are more oriented toward Wall Street and more centrist economic-thinking than we are. So that gives us some pause. But we're confident that they're all people we can work with. Overall, it's an excellent cabinet."

If Obama's cabinet lacks a strong ideology, its main value may lie in its technical skills in delivering on the transformational agenda he promised.

One of the most prominent examples of that is former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

In choosing Daschle to lead Health and Human Services and revamp the nation's health-care system, Obama seems intent on avoiding problems that doomed the last major attempt to improve health care. When Bill Clinton pushed a health-care overhaul in 1993 - an initiative led by his wife - he was criticized for not working more cooperatively with Congress.

As a Capitol Hill veteran, Daschle is unlikely to repeat that mistake, health-care advocates said.

They predicted he would court members of Congress in ways the Clinton team never did.

Ron Pollack, executive director of FamiliesUSA, a health-care consumer-advocacy group, said Daschle already has reached out to all sides of the reform debate. Meantime, doctors, insurers and business and labor leaders are privately meeting to reach a consensus on how the new system should be designed.

"It's likely to be less contentious than last time," Pollack said. "Tom Daschle is an excellent listener. He has his own ideas, but he also has an excellent personal touch."

Interest groups also expect the beginning of Obama's administration to be marked by a major push to curb greenhouse gases and thus reduce the threat of global warming.

Obama's "green-team" selections include Energy secretary Steven Chu, the Nobel winner; energy and climate adviser Carol Browner, a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency; EPA chief Lisa Jackson; and Interior secretary Ken Salazar. All have records of pushing anti-warming measures.

Chu reoriented the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to focus on alternative-energy technologies. Browner is an Al Gore disciple who has been outspoken on the issue. Salazar made renewable energy the centerpiece of his sales pitch for Obama in rural Colorado. Jackson, as the top environmental official in New Jersey, pushed anti-warming measures.

"These are people who understand the seriousness of the situation and realize we don't have much time" to act, said David Bookbinder, chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club.