So what will a Kerry cabimet look like? See Safire's Kerry's Boldface Names - here are the big three:
Secretary of State Hot candidates are former U.N. ambassadors RICHARD HOLBROOKE and BILL RICHARDSON, Senator JOE BIDEN, ex-Senate majority leader GEORGE MITCHELL, and the dark horse, former Treasury Secretary BOB RUBIN. The envelope, please: (pause) Holbrooke.
Defense Secretary Michigan Senator CARL LEVIN can taste it, but first offer goes to Senator JOHN MCCAIN, who would turn it down because Arizona's governor would fill his seat with a Democrat. But Nebraska's CHUCK HAGEL, the Democrats' favorite Republican, would jump at it, and Kerry needs Pentagon G.O.P. support, as BILL CLINTON did.
National Security Adviser If Kerry considers this a coordination job, it would go to RAND BEERS, who has all the charisma of Clinton's SAMUEL BERGER. Contrariwise, if he wanted to dominate State and Defense from the White House, he could pick Gen. WES CLARK. More likely, Kerry would choose a major player with defense-reform credentials, like former Senator GARY HART.
But of course it all comes back to Clinton now doesn't it? The real question is this:
Will Bill Clinton's forthcoming memoir help rather than hurt the Kerry campaign? Beyond old Safire there is much hand wringing over this: Timing of Clinton Memoir Is Everything, for Kerry; DICK MORRIS IS TALKING SENSE ABOUT THE CLINTON BOOK -
Is it just me or is Dick Morris the most sensible-sounding person to appear in today's New York Times piece about Bill Clinton's forthcoming book? The piece spends paragraph after paragraph wringing its hands over the timing of the book's release, which could overshadow John Kerry and fire up the Republican base. To which Morris responds: "I wouldn't bet on it coming out during the campaign," said Dick Morris, who worked as Mr. Clinton's chief campaign strategist. "He takes a long time to finish things and he's never happy, and he fills up the wastebasket."
"What I really believe is if he were to come out with it during the campaign it would be intended as a way of undercutting Kerry," he added. "It would turn the whole election into a debate about Clinton rather than Kerry."
Given that Clinton isn't done writing yet, and given that it's clearly going to take a Herculean effort to get the book out early this summer, when it would only be a moderate distraction rather than a massive distraction to the presidential campaign, what's so wrong with delaying it for six months or a year? The only problem, as far as I can tell, is that it's probably best from a marketing perspective to release a blockbuster political book at the height of a presidential campaign. But it's not like the book is going to suffer for lack of attention regardless of when it comes out. And, as Morris points out, if marketing and PR considerations end up driving this decision, then it really will be a f--- you to John Kerry.
Well now, once again the "Big Dog" hunts.