With Joe Biden the declared winner of the 2020 presidential election, speculation is buzzing about who may be asked to join his cabinet — with scandal scarred Susan Rice even rumored to be on the list.
While liberals had hoped for a progressive dream team packed with lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, those wishes are now likely dashed with Republicans keeping control of the Senate.
An exhaustive list of potential candidates and the jobs they may take was assembled by Politico — and contains many familiar faces, including some closely involved in the Obama administration’s biggest failures.
Rice is being touted as a likely early favorite for Secretary of State, even though her Benghazi baggage may have doomed her spot as Biden’s vice president.
Rice previously served as President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations and National Security Advisor but was forced out of Washington when she falsely claimed that the attack on the US embassy in Benghazi evolved out of a protest against an offensive viral video.
Biden friend and confidant Sen. Chris Coons of the president-elect’s home state of Delaware, and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, are also under consideration, but Biden could be loathe to pluck safe Democratis out of a closely divided Senate.
That could be a silver lining for Alabama senate seat loser Doug Jones, who is under consideration for attorney general.
The Democrat, who as expected lost his Senate race to Republican Tommy Tuberville, is not on the market for a new job and would likely sail through the Senate. He is close to the incoming president stemming from his work on Biden’s 1988 campaign.
Jones has previously served as a US Attorney and helped put away Klan members in a famous case stemming from the bombing of a Birmingham church in 1963.
Like any good establishment Democrats, Biden will also likely reach into the mega-donor class for one of their own.
Many see former eBay boss Meg Whitman as a possible contender for Commerce Secretary. Though a Republican, Whitman is genial with bipartisan appear — she would also surely anger progressives who wish to pull Biden leftward.
With little potential future in deep red Indiana, former South Bend mayor and one-time presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is widely expected to join the Biden cabinet in a national role.
The most likely choice right now appears to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Though his camp has been gunning for UN Ambassador as a way to burnish Pete’s self-taught foreign policy chops, Biden will likely keep foreign policy jobs exclusively for longtime associates.
There is wide agreement that the frontrunner for Secretary of Defense would be Michele Flournoy.