Early look at Barack Obama’s cabinet possibilities

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has been cited as a front-runner for the position of the nation’s top diplomat. As the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, Kerry helped catapult Obama into national prominence by selecting him as the keynote speaker for that year’s Democratic National Convention. Kerry, the No. 3 Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, is a decorated Vietnam vet with decades of foreign policy experience, who has reportedly expressed interest in the job. He has publicly supported Obama’s position of talking to leaders of rogue regimes such as Iran, and, though he voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said in a speech at the Democratic Convention that it was “the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

During the last debate of the presidential campaign, Obama specifically cited Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, as someone who has shaped his ideas on foreign policy issues—along with Biden. Lugar, who used to chair the committee, has distanced himself from certain Bush administration policies, supporting Obama’s call to engage with Iran and pushing for more involvement in the peace process. At a talk last month at the National Defense University, he said, “to make diplomacy effective, we have to work constantly to ensure that we can apply a broad range of geopolitical leverage when we need to do so.”

Another name frequently cited is Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and former Democratic presidential candidate. Richardson held the post of ambassador to the UN and secretary of energy during the Clinton administration. Known for his negotiating skills, he traveled to Iraq in 1995 to negotiate the release of two American workers held by Saddam Hussein, and in 2006, traveled to Sudan to help secure the release of Tribune journalist Paul Salopek. The only Hispanic governor in the country, he was seen as instrumental in helping to secure the Hispanic vote for Obama.