To be fair, Los Angeles has a population larger than 23 states. But yeah, I don’t see him staying municipal forever.
I’m not really a fan of filling the Cabinet with politicians-- I’d much rather have cabinet members come from within the departments that they’d be heading. And so most of the people who would make good Cabinet secretaries are folks who most of us have never heard of, because nobody ever hears about civil servants unless there’s trouble.
Biden should nominate a Republican Senator from a state with a Democratic Governor.
I can’t imagine that McConnell would allow a nomination that would cut into or eliminate his narrow majority to proceed.
That’s not how it works. The secretary isn’t running the day to day business. They are translating and implemented President’s agenda. They need to be people who understand and believe in the President’s agenda and can work well with the top civil servants to implement it in an effective manner. So yes, experience in the field helps, but isn’t as important as being able r to convey the vision.
TL;DR: Secretaries are the President’s proxy, not the administrative heads.
Just to piss off trump, Cory Booker for HUD sec’y.
IIRC back in the day his name was mostly brought up with ambassador to the UN.
If a fellow Republican senator wanted to take the position and Mitch blocked the nomination vote that would be the end of him in Washington. This isn’t a manager at pizza hut not letting an employee transfer stores. Blocking a collegue just wouldn’t happen.
I’m a little surprised this cite hasn’t made it into this thread:
Also, there is an intriguing proposal from Glenn Kirscher on how Biden might could maybe turn the tables on McConnell:
Yes, it’s from Daily Kos, but the original Youtube is cited in the article and Kirschner is no dummy or crazy left-winger. Definitely worth a think.
Booker went kinda cray-cray with his "take all the guns’ deal there at the end, along with Beto.
I disagree. The only Cabinet nominee to be voted down by the Senate in the last fifty years was John Tower, who had been a long-serving Senator from Texas just four years previously. His having been a colleague with almost all of the then-serving Senators didn’t save him.
And why would the Republican Caucus (who are the only people who get a vote on whether he continues to be Majority Leader) turn on him for taking an action that would let them keep their Chairmanship and other perks? Much more likely they would vilify any Republican Senator willing to take a Cabinet post knowing it would mean their seat would go to a Democrat.
Why not Raul Grijalva for Interior Secretary?
Wouldn’t much matter for HUD. Not a lot of gun-related decisions made there.
Also, if you study McConnell, he doesn’t just wade into fights; he didn’t get to where he is by being reckless. In 2009, he let Obama have his little honeymoon period not out of love or respect but because he wanted to wait until the right time to attack. He waited until the stimulus but only put up mild resistance then; he knew the fight over healthcare and judges was coming and that’s when he started obstructing. He will probably do the same with Biden - he’ll let him have some of his picks, might put up some stiffer resistance on others, but save his real bag of tricks for blocking Biden’s agenda.
Doubt he’d take it. He has chronic lymphocytic leukemia which tends to generate bout of pretty severe fatigue, not ideal for holding a Cabinet position.
Wait wait wait. Mitch McConnell, a member of the opposition party, can veto a presidents cabinet choices? The mind it struggles 
I’m afraid you may be right, but isn’t it possible that they might get riled up over the failure to allow votes on any cabinet appointment?
I think it would be great if Biden re-instated Mattis as Secretary of Defense. Mattis was excellent in that role. He deserves to be vindicated. (If he’s up for it, I mean.)
It would be a bad look for him and the Republicans, sure. But like I said up thread, I don’t think he would launch a full blockade of appointees. What’s in it for him? I could see him block initial nominees for a couple of the high profile appointments like Attorney General or Defense to put a shot across Biden’s bow, but Mitch doesn’t really gain anything by blocking Biden from appointing his Cabinet.
And he’ll want to keep his powder dry for the blockade he WILL do: blocking all Biden’s judicial nominees. He didn’t just spend four years filling the federal judiciary with conservatives for the next guy to come along and undermine his work with a bunch of liberal appointments.
I don’t believe that the Democratic primary should be treated as a farm team for the cabinet. One or two of the contenders could be good at certain things, like Booker and Buttigieg, but cabinet appointments shouldn’t just be handed out for showing up in the primary debates. They really need to go to the highest-qualified people.