Wednesday, February 4, 2009

HHS: Herb Kohl? The Marylanders?

I was going through the list of Senators to find a possible replacement for Tom Daschle as HHS nominee. Screening for longtime Senators with good public health records who come from blue states* with Democratic governors, Herb Kohl caught my eye -- dude is 73 and has been in the Senate for twenty years, so when he calls up and begs someone to vote for Obama's bill, that may turn out well. I don't know what his re-election plans are. The Marylanders -- Mikulski and Sarbanes -- also appeared interesting.

*I suppose Wisconsin is an indigo state, or maybe an aquamarine state if your color vision is as bad as mine. Obama's comfortable margin of victory makes the red/blue talk a little bit less useful, because we have less of a down-the-middle division that splits the country into neat halves. I guess that's how his presidency transcends the red/blue division and unites America...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Would it need to be a Senator though?

Nick Beaudrot said...

Tapped says NOW is pushing Debbie Stabenow.

I think Mikulski makes the most sense; she has friends on the other side of the aisle but is a pretty brass-knuckles pol.

Tlazolteotl said...

Doctor Dean!

Anonymous said...

Yeh, Dean would be great, but I guess it's never gonna happen. I never quite got why the Obama admin shirked Dean so, when he arguably laid the groundwork for the Obama campaign model in 2004.

OK, Rahm really doesnt like the guy personally, but a President should be able to surpass the personal enmities of his advisers, shouldn't he?

Neil Sinhababu said...

I think Dean was a very good DNC chair, but if part of the agenda is to push health care reform through the Senate, I don't see that as part of his skills set.