# Obama’s team of rivals **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 5, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964 "2012-11-05T16:00:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/1 "2012-11-05T16:00:50Z")
Romney talking about how he intends to be uniter not a divider reminded me of Obama trying to get together his team of rivals. Were any republicans asked to take high positions in his administration? I think there may have been at least one, but he withdrew himself because he just couldn’t stomach working for a democrat administration. I can’t recall who it was though. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/2 "2012-11-05T16:02:40Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > Were any republicans asked to take high positions in his administration? Bush’s last defense secretary, Robert Gates, was asked to stay on and remained in office until July 2011. Ray LaHood, a Republican Congressman from Illinois, is the secretary of transportation. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/3 "2012-11-05T16:04:07Z")
The secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood, is a Republican. Obama’s first secretary of defense, Robert Gates, was a holdover from the Bush administration. It’s fairly common for one cabinet member to be from the other party. Norman Mineta, a Democrat who was secretary of commerce under Clinton, was secretary of transportation under George W. Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/4 "2012-11-05T16:04:42Z")
Judd Gregg was the guy that withdrew himself, as I recall. He was nominated for Sec of Commerce. John Hunstman was Obama’s ambassador to China, and ran in the GOP primary. The Secretaries of Defense and Transportation were both Republicans (Transportation still is). It’s unclear the political leanings of the new head of the CIA (Petraeus) but most conservatives tend to assume he’s a Republican. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/5 "2012-11-05T16:07:17Z")
Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, wasn’t a political figure for either party when nominated, best I can tell, although he was a Democrat. As an aside, his biggest rival was probably Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/6 "2012-11-05T16:08:23Z")
NM ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/7 "2012-11-05T16:40:55Z")
Most people talking about a “team of rivals” are referring to the Lincoln cabinet. But Lincoln’s rivals were fellow Republicans who had competed with Lincoln. The closest comparison would be Hillary Clinton and William Seward. Clinton and Seward had both unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination and were subsequently named as Secretary of State. Lincoln also named three other Republicans who had sought the Presidency in 1860 to his cabinet: Edward Bates (Attorney General), Simon Cameron (Secretary of War), and Salmon Chase (Secretary of the Treasury). The other members of Lincoln’s cabinet, Montgomery Blair (Postmaster General), Caleb Blood Smith (Secretary of the Interior), and Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy) were also Republicans. Lincoln did not offer cabinet positions to the nominees of the other parties; Stephen Douglas (Democrat), John Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), or John Bell (Constitutional Union) or their Vice Presidential nominees. But Douglas and Breckinridge were Senators so they already had prominent offices. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/8 "2012-11-05T17:15:59Z")
Obama also held over Bush appointee Ben Bernanke, but I’m not sure how partisan he was to begin with. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/9 "2012-11-05T17:17:16Z")
Franklin Roosevelt had several Republicans in his cabinet. What we lose today is the context. Those Republicans were Teddy Roosevelt-era Progressive Republicans and were more liberal than most Southern Democrats. It is a new thing in modern American politics that all Republicans are to the right of all Democrats and vice versa. (That was the finding of the voting patterns of Senators recently. I’m sure there are some Republicans, even Republican politicians, who may be more liberal than the most conservative Democratic politicians. Even if so, they are too small a number to have any impact.) The two parties had liberal, moderate, and conservative wings for almost all of the 20th century. The Democrats still do, and there still are some moderate Republicans. But the OP is wrong in stating that the small number of Republicans appointed by Obama is because they can’t stomach the idea of working for a Democrat. It’s that the party has made it very difficult to have a future if you do so. Witness Jon Huntsman, who was read out of contention for serving as a mere Ambassador, a position that traditionally has seen members of either party serving. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/10 "2012-11-05T17:20:08Z")
Along with Hillary, Biden was also an Obama adversary in the primaries. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/11 "2012-11-05T18:03:58Z")
Also Tom Vilsack, who was named as Secretary of Agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/12 "2012-11-05T18:16:51Z")
At first I thought you meant that Vilsack was a Republican… but now I see you’re pointing out that he ran in the 2008 primary. Which I had almost completely forgotten (my memory only saved by The Daily Show’s jokes about his name). ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-s-team-of-rivals/639964/13 "2012-11-06T01:28:18Z")
Thanks everyone for the info. I think the general question is that he did make an effort for a bipartisan administration. Not much has been made of that during the campaign. > [@Jas09](#): > > Judd Gregg was the guy that withdrew himself, as I recall. He was nominated for Sec of Commerce. _–snip_ Yep. That’s the one I was thinking of. I couldn’t remember exactly why. From old article it sounds like it had to do with the stimulus and census. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > _snip –_ > But the OP is wrong in stating that the small number of Republicans appointed by Obama is because they can’t stomach the idea of working for a Democrat. It’s that the party has made it very difficult to have a future if you do so. Witness Jon Huntsman, who was read out of contention for serving as a mere Ambassador, a position that traditionally has seen members of either party serving. I was only referring to the one person as not being able to stomach working in the administration. I got that from seeing an interview with him. I know even less about how the other felt.