If, as expected, Barack Obama is elected in ten days, attention will turn almost immediately to the transition.  Several friends close to the Obama campaign have shared some of the speculation they’ve heard on who will be named to Obama’s foreign policy team.  Several other bloggers, including Steve Clemons and Marc Ambinder, have heard similar rumblings.

There are two problems with such rumors.  First, as one of the commenters over at Steve’s site noted, they usually are little more than trial balloons designed to find out what folks think of a particular candidate.  Perhaps the best recent example of this were the stories that Evan Bayh was a sure thing for Obama’s VP.

Second, as one of my friends said to me recently, “people are anxious about Obama winning, but they’re just as (if not more) anxious about whether they’re going to be offered a job.”  I’ve heard that too — in fact, it’s not just concern about being offered a job, but also worrying about whether they’ll be offered the right kind of job.  If past is prologue, it is often the candidate who starts the rumor in order to advance his or her own cause.  Most of the time, it doesn’t work.

Given the degree to which the Obama team has managed to remain leak-free so far, I find it hard to believe that its discipline would start breaking down now, especially given the fact that, as Ambinder reported, most senior campaign staff have excluded themselves from transition deliberations in order to remain focused on winning the election.  In addition, Obama remains focused on the campaign, meaning he is unlikely to havesigned off on any of these appointments.

One rumor I’ve heard (as has Steve) is that Obama will announce a number of key appointments as early as Friday, November 7th in order to speed up public vetting and, to the degree possible, Senate confirmation.  If that’s the case, I’m guessing that any announcement will be limited to the national security team (State, Defense, National Security Advisor), the Attorney-General, and the Secretaries of Homeland Security and Treasury.

I’ll leave speculation on the last three to others more qualified than me, but I would like to offer my thoughts on who is (and who should be) on the short list for the first three (as well as their Deputies and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations).  To be clear, this is more speculation than reporting.

Secretary of Defense:  The most likely scenario has Obama keeping current SecDef Robert Gates for at least one year, and appointing a key Obama team member as Deputy Secretary — probably either Richard Danzig , who was Secretary of the Navy under Clinton, or Scott Gration, who is a retired three-star general.  The deputy will then step in after learning the ropes.  The other strong contender is Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, but I would be surprised if Gates doesn’t stay for at least six months.  The long-shot outsider is Wesley Clark, who has not played a prominent role in the Obama campaign.

National Security Advisor:  The safe money is on Susan Rice, who has been one of Obama’s top foreign policy aides during the campaign, and has managed the 300-odd (now probably closer to 600) members of the two dozen foreign policy advisory teams.  Susan would be a fine choice, but I’m not sure that she’s a lock.  Some are suggesting Gregory Craig, who headed policy planning in State under Clinton and served as one of Clinton’s attorneys during the impeachment trial (only to break with the Clintons fairly early in the campaign).  Although that certainly is plausible, I think Craig may be a better fit as Deputy Secretary at State.  I’ve heard through the grapevine that James Steinberg, who currently is managing the foreign policy transition team and who served as Deputy National Security Advisor in the Clinton Administration, also is a strong contender.

Should either Craig or Steinberg get the top post, then Rice probably would be named Deputy National Security Advisor (the other two are unlikely to serve in that role).  Other possible candidates include Dennis McDonough, who formerly served as Tom Daschle’s chief foreign policy advisor; Mark Lippert, who has been Obama’s chief foreign policy aide in the Senate; and Sarah Sewell, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping Operations in the Clinton Administration.  Samantha Power, who also served on Obama’s staff is a long-shot, but I think she’s more likely to be named Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (she would be an outstanding choice).  All four have been part of Obama’s inner circle of foreign policy advisors (although Power had to resign after calling Hillary a “monster”), but none are senior enough to get the top job.

State:  Joe Biden is likely to play a central role in foreign policy decision-making, and may serve as a de facto Secretary of State.  That means that certain individuals who otherwise would be interested in the job, may pass on it.  Among Obama’s current advisors, Anthony Lake, who served as National Security Advisor in the Clinton Administration, would be a strong contender, but I hear that he has made it pretty clear that he’s not interested.  Other names I’ve heard include Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, John Kerry, and Bill Richardson.  Although Obama will want to demonstrate bipartisanship, he would get significant pushback from Democrats were he to appoint Republicans to both State and DOD.  That would exclude Hagel and Lugar, unless Gates doesn’t stay.

That leaves Richardson and Kerry.  Given the fairly dynamic figures that have held the post more recently, Obama will want someone who can be an effective leader with the capacity to push back against Biden (when necessary).  He also should pick someone who can fix what’s wrong with the current bureaucracy, including the challenges facing existing foreign assistance and public diplomacy operations.  That pretty much excludes both Kerry and Richardson, who are neither assertive nor reformers.

Steve Clemons believes that, if those are the choices, Obama should go with Kerry — largely because of Clemons’s concerns (which I share) about Richardson’s temperament, mistreatment of staff, and tendency toward personal self-aggrandizement.  Richardson also might face the toughest confirmation fight, given his erratic tenure as Secretary of Energy and a talent for exaggeration that exceeds even Joe Biden’s.

But I’m not so high on Kerry either.  Despite his brilliant speech at the convention, Kerry is, in many ways, a slightly younger version of Warren Christopher, Clinton’s first Secretary of State.  Christopher was a weak Secretary, lacking the energy to reform the Department (not that his three successors did much better) or the charisma to influence policy.  Kerry also would reinforce the now-outdated perception of the Department as a striped pants-wearing East Coast elite out of touch with mainstream America.

There are two other factors concerning Kerry that Steve may not have considered — neither of which is likely to prevent him from taking the job, but still should be remembered as we discuss the possibility of it.  First (and sadly to say), Ted Kennedy probably doesn’t have long to live; Kerry may hesitate to leave his state with two fairly junior Senators (then again he may not).  Second, assuming that Chris Dodd wants to continue playing a central role in managing the Congressional response to the financial crisis, Kerry is next in line to succeed Biden as Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.  Again, that may not prevent him from taking the job, but I could see Obama encouraging him to play that role for at least a couple of years.

So where does that leave us?  I see four likely scenarios:

• Obama goes with Reed, Danzig, or Gration at DOD, enabling him to pick Lugar or Hagel at State;
• Obama picks Kerry or Richardson;
• Obama picks a younger, more dynamic figure from his inner circle (Danzig, Rice, or Craig are the most likely);
• Obama goes long and makes an unexpected pick.

If it’s the fourth scenario, let me throw out some names:  former Vice President Al Gore; former Senator Gary Hart (who has done some of the more creative thinking out there); and former Congressman (and 9-11 Commission co-chair) Lee Hamilton.  Gore would have the gravitas, the ability to push back when Biden gets a bit assertive, and experience in trying to reform government institutions.  Hart also has those qualities, although his track record as a reformer is more the result of his post-Senatorial career promoting change from outside the political process.  Hamilton flunks the dynamic leader test, but his leadership on the 9-11 Commission demonstrates that he understands the structural challenges.

Let me suggest three other possibilities, all of which would pass the dynamic leader and reformer tests: Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, and Eric Holder.  Neither Feingold or Boxer has much executive experience, but Hagel, Lugar, and Kerry don’t either.  Of the two, I think Feingold is more likely, if only because James Doyle, a Democrat, would appoint his replacement, while Schwartzenegger would pick Boxer’s.

Holder, who served as Deputy Attorney-General in the Clinton Administration, is usually viewed as a leading candidate for the top job at Justice.  But when Obama announced his national security advisory group back in June, Holder was on the list.  He certainly passes the dynamism test, and he also should be able to shake up the foreign policy apparatus.

In terms of who definitely won’t get the job, my money is on Richard Holbrooke, who would have been the frontrunner had Gore won in 2000.  Holbrooke is smart, capable, and has the confidence to be an effective leader, push back against against Biden, and reform the foreign policy apparatus.  Unfortunately, he also has a track record of angering the wrong people at the wrong time, and treats his staff as abysmally as Richardson does.  According to what I’ve heard, neither Rice nor Lake like him much.  CQ’s inclusion of him as one of the three most likely candidates (along with Rice and Richardson) is laughable, especially given the fact that he was consciously excluded from the senior foreign policy advisory team created after Obama brought the Clintonistas on board.

Deputy Secretary of State is a much more significant position than it used to be — Richard Armitage, Robert Zoellick, and John Pointdexter all were important players during the Bush years, and both Zoellick and Pointdexter left cabinet-level positions to take the job.  If Obama goes with one of the more senior figures as Secretary, then he’ll want someone younger and more dynamic to lead the charge on foreign affairs reform.  As I noted earlier, Gregory Craig would be a solid choice, although his role as Elian Gonzalez’s father’s attorney may hurt his chances for confirmation (something he wouldn’t face were he to be named National Security Advisor).  Susan Rice also would be a good pick, although my gut says she’ll want to stay closer to the White House.  If he doesn’t get one of the top two jobs at Defense, Richard Danzig also is a possibility.  Two other possibilities are Morton Halperin, who served as head of policy planning under Albright, among other positions over the years; and Dennis Ross, Clinton’s Middle East guru.

Some Presidents have made the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations a Cabinet-level position.  Bush did not (thank God in the case of John Bolton); Obama should do so, even if he does not name someone in the near future.

In terms of who would be best for the job, Obama should pick someone who not only can play the role effectively, but will be seen as credible advocate to the rest of the world.  My choice would be Harold Hongju Koh, current Dean of Yale Law School and former Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor in the Clinton years (full disclosure:  Harold is my former boss and a close friend) — although he’s far more likely to be on any short list for the Supreme Court.  Another possibility is former Senator Timothy Wirth, who now heads the U.N Foundation.  A third is former Deputy Secretary of Treasury Stuart Eisenstadt, though he is more likely a candidate for Secretary of Treasury or U.S. Trade Representative.

So who do I want and who do I think will get it?  First, here’s who I would like to see named:

• Secretary of Defense:  Jack Reed or Richard Danzig (although I could live with Gates staying on);
• Deputy, DOD:  Danzig or Gration
• National Security Advisor:  Susan Rice or Jim Steinberg
• Deputy, NSC:  Susan Rice if she doesn’t get the top job, Mark Lippert if she does
• Secretary of State:  Chuck Hagel (unless Gates stays on, in which case I’d like to see Russ Feingold)
• Deputy, DOS:  Greg Craig or Mort Halperin
• USUN:  Harold Koh

Now here’s who I think will get it:

• Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates
• Deputy, DOD:  Richard Danzig
• National Security Advisor:  Jim Steinberg
• Deputy, NSC:  Susan Rice
• Secretary of State:  Bill Richardson
• Deputy, DOS:  Greg Craig
• USUN:  Tim Wirth

Share your ideas in the comments below.

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So I’ve gotten some interesting feedback, mainly via email, about last night’s post on The 300.  My good friend Steve Clemons at The Washington Note, agrees with me that the Times piece is a misfire. Not sure I agree with him, however, that Obama is “colonizing” the DC foreign policy community.  If he were, I doubt he would have only 300 folks in the network.  Or consciously exclude people like Richard Holbrooke and Zbigniew Brzezinski even if the former is Tony Lake’s rival and the latter has some outside-the-mainstream ideas on Middle East peace.

I know that to some of you, this may seem like little more than inside baseball.  Who really cares how many people are advising Obama?  Shouldn’t it matter more what kind of advice he’s getting?  To which I can only offer one response:

Exactly.

But the problem is that the mainstream media — and to a lesser degree some of my friends in the blogosphere — seem determined to portray Obama as “inexperienced” on foreign policy.  Just today, The Washington Post has a front page story with the following headline and sub-head:

Obama Going Abroad with World Watching

Foreign Policy Credentials Are At Stake

Huh?  Obama’s future credibility will be determined by what he does on a single week-long trip to Europe and the Middle East?  A trip that doesn’t include China, India, Japan, Latin America, Africa, or a whole bunch of other important places?  A trip that his opponent kept criticizing him for not taking until he started criticizing him for taking it?

Let’s acknowledge the reality here.  The trip is window-dressing.  Yes, it is designed to show Americans that Obama knows something about foreign policy.  But the only reason it’s getting this kind of coverage is that it’s late July and the media doesn’t have anything better to do than speculate on whether Obama’s entire candidacy will hinge on a few photo-ops.

The real story here is that the media continue to embrace a deeply corrosive — and oh yeah, completely wrong — meme that is, after all, little more than a a set of McCain campaign talking points.  “Obama is over his head.” “Obama doesn’t have the experience to be commander in chief.”  “Obama doesn’t know anything about foreign policy.”  “Obama is a rookie and we can’t have a rookie in charge right now.” “Obama is very very scaaaaary.”

What utter nonsense.  On issue after issue — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and more — Obama has taken positions that have proven to be far more sensible and realistic than those taken by either McCain or Bush.  He is more thoughtful, more realistic, more pragmatic, and perhaps most importantly, more often right than John McCain.  The only thing he isn’t is more experienced.

But if “experience” were the only prerequisite for the presidency, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney (ARGH! MY EYES!), Joe Biden, and Bill Richardson would be our candidates.

So instead of asking who is more experienced, maybe the media should ask who has the better ideas.  Maybe they should look at who has been more adaptive in responding to changing conditions on the ground.  And maybe they should stop mislabeling flexibility as flip-flops.

Nah.  That would require reporters to think.  Wouldn’t want that.  Making stuff up is a lot more fun.

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One of the downsides of having been largely offline over the past 36 hours is that I’m just now getting caught up on the news.  So I know I’m late to this story, but I think I’ll make this worth your time.

In case you missed it, the New York Times had a big exclusive today:  it turns out that there are three hundred people advising Barack Obama on foreign policy!!

Gasp.

I don’t know which part of this amazed me more:  that the Times regarded this as news or that the blogosphere swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.

You see, I have a little different perspective on all of this.

I am… wait for it… cue the movie music…

ONE OF THE 300!

Yes, you may touch the hem of my robe.

But wait a second.  Something is wrong here.  Where is my crimson robe?  My spear?  My six pack abs?  If I’m going to throw myself off a cliff, I want my six-pack abs!

Oh wait, wrong 300.

But I’m pretty sure I am one of that other 300 — the Obama 300.  Well, maybe not after this post.

About nine months ago, I contacted some folks who I knew were already involved in the Obama campaign. I let them know that I was willing to help out on policy.  A little while later I got an email thanking me for my interest and assigning me to a team of other people interested in the same issues. Every few weeks, the team leader sent out an email asking us to draft or comment on something.  He also passed on a request from the campaign for us to volunteer for the ground campaign, which I and many others were more than happy to do.

More recently, we’ve started to organize ourselves a bit more, and have been tasked to write some briefs on specific issues.  We’re even dividing into more specialized subgroups.

But I have absolutely no illusions about this.  We are not Barack Obama’s “mini State Department,” as the Times claims.  In fact, one of the main purposes of these teams is… to keep us out of the way of the people actually making the decisions.

You see, every four years, every presidential campaign is inundated with officeseekerwannabes, some idealistic, some not so much.  There are newbies who have never before been involved in a campaign, worker bees who have served in mid-level policy positions in previous administrations, and Prominent People who don’t have much time but want to help where they can.  All of them have some sort of expertise on a given issue.  All of them want the candidate to win.  And almost all of them know that if you want a job in the next administration, you have to put in your time.

So what is a campaign to do?  You can’t have three hundred people advising a candidate, no matter what the Times may think.  If a campaign is smart (and that certainly is true of the Obama campaign) they do what any sensible organization does:  they form committees.  Except they call them “foreign policy advisory teams,” invite all the officeseekerwannabes to join, and then (for the most part)… ignore them.

Am I being cynical here?  A little.  But my disdain is for the Times’s breathless reporting, not the process.

Here’s the thing.  Four years ago, I co-coordinated one of these groups for the Kerry campaign.  I was one of two people who designated roles, set deadlines, assigned responsibility for drafting, and held conference calls.  Lots and lots of conference calls.  It was our job to get stuff done when the campaign needed it.  I wrote two of the five “core” position papers as well as a few smaller ones and the relevant sections of the platform and the debate prep book.

I’m not trying to brag — I just want to give you a feel for what was (and is) involved.  There were plenty of other people who did even more.

Did we have any influence on the Kerry campaign?  I have no idea.  I know that the people managing foreign policy for Kerry — Rand Beers, Dan Feldman, and Susan Rice, among others — did a good job of making us feel like we were being heard — just like I was trying to do with the people on my team.  But I never actually heard a talking point I wrote come out of Kerry’s mouth.

Our team had 50 people on it.  There were 20 teams.  Now think about that for a moment.  Do the math.

So why weren’t there reporters covering the number of people on the Kerry team four years ago?

Oh.  Wait.  There.  Were.  Took me five minutes on the Google to find the stories.  Except back then, we were called a “mini-NSC” instead of a “mini-State:”

“I’ve put together for Kerry a small group of mostly younger foreign policy advisers, a sort of mini-NSC,” says [Dan] Feldman, 36. Feldman says he helped pick the group by the expertise of its members to mirror the various directorates within the National Security Council, including experts on areas like the Middle East or Africa and on topics such as counter-terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.  “We have a weekly conference call, write position papers, and do opposition research on the Bush administration,” says Feldman.

Nice going Times.  You just ran a front-page story that is virtually the same as one reported by you and others four years ago.

And no matter what the Times may think, Obama doesn’t have The 300 because he is a neophyte on foreign policy.  In fact, from my experience, he is better briefed on national security issues than either Bill Clinton or John Kerry were at this point in their campaigns.  The core group of people — the ones actually advising him — have done their jobs well.  But you know what?  He’s pretty smart too.

That core group also happens to have done this before on previous campaigns.  They know a process like this works.  But they also know that it happens to be a great way of putting together a pool of… potential candidates for jobs that need to be filled quickly, given the fact that we’re fighting two wars and everything.

And do you think Obama is the only candidate in this cycle to put together such a team?  Hillary Clinton had as many people helping her, and no one suggested she was inexperienced.  I have a friend who was going to play a similar role for Mark Warner before he decided not to run.  I know people who were trying to do something similar for Richardson, and I’m sure Edwards did too.  And what about all the stories about Giuliani’s scary brain trust?  Remember them?  Were they there because Giuliani was a neophyte?

In fact, I would be suspicious of a candidate who doesn’t have something like this in place.

Paging John McCain.  Senator McCain, flashing red courtesy phone please.

McCain said today that he doesn’t have — or need — a similarly sized group.

I don’t believe him.  He is either

1. lying;
2. oblivious; or
3. the first candidate in twenty years not to have at least 300 people in the national security community trying to line themselves up for a job.

And given his string of gaffes on things as basic as the existence of Czechoslovakia and the difference between Sunnis and Shiites, he should think about adding a few more.  Say, I don’t know, maybe 300?

I’ll have more on stupidities of the Times story tomorrow.

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