Elaine Chao may move to Department of Transportation in new Bush Administration
Bush likely to promote from within if reelected
By Alexis Simendinger, National Journal
If George W. Bush is re-elected after touting the steadiness and wisdom of his policies and the talents of his loyal subordinates during his first four years, why would he change his Cabinet by Inauguration Day? The conventional wisdom is that he won't seek a dramatic shake-up but instead might find himself promoting junior-grade officers to fill vacancies around his table.
Put another way, some White House insiders confide they can't quite picture the president ordering White House Chief of Staff Andy Card to take a broom to Team Bush in January 2005, if Bush beats John Kerry. A president so resolute about his policies, the insiders figure, is likely to remain loyal to his team. If Card knows Bush's plans for his second-term Cabinet and staff, the chief of staff believes that saying anything publicly would be appallingly presumptuous. "We'll deal with those questions at the appropriate time," Card said good-naturedly as he stepped away from the television cameras in St. Louis after the second of three presidential debates.
When pressed, however, Card conceded that he had "a pretty good idea," in part from personal conversations, whether each Cabinet secretary planned to depart of his or her own volition if Bush is re-elected, or desired to remain in some capacity for a second term. Card said he had "tasked a few people" out of his office to work on second-term staffing matters for Bush. "We will be prepared to fulfill our constitutional duties on January 20," he said, constructing a tidy sentence that affirmed the obvious in the event of a Bush victory or a Bush defeat.
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Transportation Secretary -- Norman Mineta, the lone Democrat in Bush's Cabinet, plans to leave in January, according to a senior White House official and department-watchers. At 72, with some health problems behind him, Mineta may have caught wind that Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham reportedly fancy his job. Chao was deputy transportation secretary under George H.W. Bush. Michael P. Jackson, Mineta's first deputy at Transportation, could be a favorite of former Transportation Secretary Andy Card, for whom Jackson once worked. Jackson is now with the private-sector engineering firm Aecom, and colleagues say he seems content there but could be swayed by a call from Bush. If the president opts to promote from within the department, Federal Aviation Administration chief Marion Blakey is a candidate, though she would face opposition from unions after tussles over privatization of federal jobs. Two other possibilities: Federal Highway Administrator Mary Peters, the former Arizona transportation secretary; and former Texas Transportation Commission chief David Laney.
Labor Secretary -- "It was no secret that the Department of Labor was not her first choice; she wanted DOT," one industry source said of Secretary Elaine Chao. Some see her help campaigning for Bush this year as a good-soldier effort to keep a hand in beyond Election Day, perhaps for that Transportation move. If Chao departs, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Cari M. Dominguez, and George Salem, Labor's chief legal officer during the Reagan administration, are candidates to watch.
