The guessing game over who Barack Obama would name to top White House posts is in full swing on the eve of Tuesday's national election. There are dueling prognosticative camps over who a President Obama would put in charge of the Treasury Department. While there is no consensus over who will get the job, there is a fair amount of agreement that Obama has already made up his mind -- but has not shared his decision widely enough for word to leak out. That leaves plenty of room for rampant, unfounded speculation -- the most fun kind.
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The conventional-wisdom pick among regulatory attorneys and others of a prudent mindset is New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner. A protégé of Clinton era Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, he has been in the middle of every substantive government action to address today's financial crisis. Picking Geithner would enable the next administration to pick up where the departing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson leaves off.
The pick of Capitol Hill cognoscenti appears to be Larry Summers, Rubin's successor and Clinton's third treasury secretary. (Lloyd Bentsen was the first.) Summers for some reason is not painted with the same deregulatory brush that Rubin (and by default Geithner) is being painted with. It's true Rubin ignored calls to regulate credit derivatives, and the financial system is now paying the price, but Summers continued Rubin's policies and can't claim to have a better record on that issue.
Summers does have more of one thing than Geithner: enemies. Geithner was a relative unknown until the financial meltdown and is viewed largely as a technocrat with sufficient experience for the job. Summers moved to the presidency of Harvard University after leaving Treasury only to be forced out after angering women's rights advocates for suggesting in a public forum that "innate" differences between men and women might account for a dearth of elite female scientists. Picking Summers probably wouldn't get an Obama administration off to a good start with the Hillary Clinton supporters still miffed about allegedly "sexist" treatment of their candidate during the primary campaign.
Other reported picks seem to not be taken seriously in DC. Neither Rubin nor Carter/Reagan era Fed Chairman Paul Volker is given much chance. Both seem content to play the role of Washington wise man to Obama without the daily grind of the cabinet post. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is discounted because he is a former chairman of Goldman, Sachs & Co., as were Rubin and Paulson, and Obama can't afford to be seen perpetuating Goldman's seeming lock on the post. - Bill McConnell
See related story about Corzine from Dealscape
Bill McConnell is The Deal's Washington bureau chief.
