Sunday, February 8, 2009

HHS Contenders - I Pitch For Dean

Well, Tom Daschle is out. So, who is going to he Secretary of Health & Human Services? The buzz at the moment says, Kathleen Sebelius. She would be a fine pick. She would have made as good a pick for Vice President as Biden, and I'd say more people were probably expecting it.

Another buzz says, Howard Dean. I would love to see Dean in this spot. Rahm Emanuel could be the obstacle for Dean, as I believe it's pretty clear Emanuel strongarmed Dean out of the DNC and out of the running for Chief of Staff. President Obama certainly has no pressing need to mend fences with the former DNC Chair, but it would be a nice gesture. Howard Dean rallied the Democratic party when they needed it most (after the 2004 losses in Congress.) He was also blackballed out of the presidential contest in 2004 for a platform that Obama won a landslide on four years later. His views should be fairly consistent with the new Administration. His 50-State Strategy won back the White House and Congress in 2008, in spite of friction between himself and the Obama campaign machine when Dean did not immediately intervene in the Florida and Michigan disputes during the primaries. Howard Dean is a doctor, a former governor and has had at least 4 years knee-deep in the mechanics of the Democratic party. He would lack some of Daschle's gravity, but the main Democratic platform item, Universal Health Care, will ultimately get carried out in the Senate, where Ted Kennedy's very big stick should be sufficient. The rest of the duties of HHS management would be right up Dean's alley.

1 comment:

libhom said...

Obama should pick Lorri Jean, who runs the lesbian and gay center in Los Angeles. She is more qualified than Dean or any of the mentioned contenders.

Obama has been consistently discriminating against lgbt people in cabinet appointments. This needs to stop.