Tom Daschle -- one man's pick for Obama White House chief of staff
DENVER -- Bruce Reed knows a thing or two about putting together an administration. He was a key policy aide for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign and continued in that role during the transition. When 
Clinton took office, he served as chief domestic policy advisor.
So The Ticket paid attention today when Reed, appearing on a panel assembled to speculate how Barack Obama might govern as president, offered some thoughts on staffing.
He pegged Tom Daschle -- the former Senate majority leader who was an early Obama backer -- as White House chief of staff (which explained for us why there was very little VP buzz surrounding the South Dakotan -- he's holding out for a job with REAL clout).
Reed, reflecting on his old White House job, foresees it being filled by Heather Higginbottom, a onetime top aide for Sen. John Kerry who now serves as Obama's domestic policy director.
And as the go-to lawmaker on Capitol Hill, the one the new administration looks to for party discipline -- its own Tom DeLay, as Reed put it (referring to the former Republican House enforcer from Texas) -- Reed tabbed the always-feisty Illinois congressman, Rahm Emanuel.
Now maybe, just maybe, Reed's predictions were influenced by the fact that Daschle, Higginbottom and Emanuel were his fellow panelists at the forum -- sponsored by the National Journal and moderated by the estimable Ron Brownstein (our former Times colleague). We did note a sly smile on Reed's face as he offered his picks.
Still, each is plausible.
Daschle and Higginbottom laughed off the speculation. Emanuel was running late, so he wasn't there to respond with a patented quip.
-- Don Frederick
Photo credit: Reuters
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Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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