Politico is reporting that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) will be named secretary of state by President-elect Obama sometime after Thanksgiving.
President-elect Barack Obama is “on track” to name Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as his secretary of state shortly after Thanksgiving, two senior Obama aides said.
Financial disclosure issues have been worked out, aides said.
The officials said they expect her to accept. Clinton aides had no comment.
But the New York Times reports that Clinton’s decision to accept the potential offer is far from a slam dunk. She may be offered an enhanced role in the Senate if she were to stay.
Democratic leaders in the Senate are prepared to give Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton a still-undefined leadership role there if she does not become Barack Obama’s secretary of state, Democratic officials close to the situation said Thursday.
The discussions about an enhanced position for Mrs. Clinton are factoring into her deliberations over joining the cabinet, the officials said. Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, is wrestling with whether to abandon her independence to become the nation’s top diplomat or remain in a chamber where lack of seniority limits her influence.
Mrs. Clinton asked to join the Senate Democratic leadership after the Nov. 4 election, and party leaders began trying to figure out a way to accommodate her without dislodging any of the current leaders, Democratic officials said. The conversations, they added, preceded Mr. Obama’s approach to her about becoming secretary of state and are on the table if she turns the job down.
Although it’s disputed by Clinton aides, the article notes that she has felt a sense of disenchantment with the Senate and her lack of influence because of seniority rules. She also did not appreciate the reception she received upon returning from her campaign for president.
But driving her consideration, friends said, is a sense of disenchantment with the Senate, where despite her stature she remains low in the ranks of seniority that governs the body. She was particularly upset, they said, at the reception she felt she received when she returned from the campaign after collecting 18 million votes and almost becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party.
“Her experience in the Senate with some of her colleagues has not been the easiest time for her,” said one longtime friend who insisted on anonymity in exchange for sharing Mrs. Clinton’s sentiments. “She’s still a very junior senator. She doesn’t have a committee. And she’s had some disappointing times with her colleagues.”
In particular, the friend said, Mrs. Clinton was upset when the leadership rejected the possibility of her heading a special new task force with a staff and a mandate to develop legislation expanding health care coverage.
In dismissing the idea, Senate leaders noted that Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, chairman of the health committee, planned to play the leading role in shaping a plan for universal coverage even as he battles brain cancer. In the current Congress, Mrs. Clinton is eighth in seniority among Democrats on Mr. Kennedy’s committee.
Other Democratic officials said Mrs. Clinton had then wanted to serve in a broader leadership role, perhaps as chairwoman of the Democratic Policy Committee, a sort of internal “think tank” with a staff, a budget and office space. But the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, refused to give her that post, because he did not want to force out the current chairman, Senator Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota, the officials said.
