It's open to question to what degree Barack Obama will actually assemble a "team of rivals" in his administration, but his admiration for the concept of a team of rivals as described by Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book of the same name is well documented.
We'll all have to hope that Obama takes some of Goodwin's historical rivals as seriously as he takes her book.
Matthew Pinsker, in the LA Times:
Consider this inconvenient truth: Out of the four leading vote-getters for the 1860 Republican presidential nomination whom Lincoln placed on his original team, three left during his first term -- one in disgrace, one in defiance and one in disgust.
James Oakes, in the New York Times:
Nor is it quite correct to say that Lincoln installed his "enemies" in the cabinet. Rivals for his own party’s nomination are not the same thing as political "enemies." It would have been inconceivable, for example, for Lincoln to offer a cabinet appointment to his Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas.
In the months after his election, Lincoln tried to find a Southerner as a symbol of national unity. But he drew sharp limits. He would appoint no one who did not endorse the Republican platform. What was the point, Lincoln asked, in naming someone who did not share the president’s basic principles? "Does he surrender to Mr. Lincoln," the president-elect wondered, "or Mr. Lincoln to him?"
All of which is to say, appointing former rivals to your administration isn't automatically a bad idea by any means. But it certainly should not be elevated to a principle.