Obama Works To Develop New Administration
This story was written by Alyssa Siegele, The Daily Vidette
President-elect Barack Obama faces appointments, issues and changes to be made in the United States and his possible appointment prospects resemble the same types of leaders chosen by former President Clinton. Obama has already tapped Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel, a former Clinton aide, to fill his chief of staff position.
One potential candidate for Attorney General, Artur Davis, recently held the position of U.S. Attorney. Obama could potentially choose between Samantha Power or Sarah Sewell for positions of foreign policy leadership.
"Barack Obama is inheriting, in essence, a broken home," Tim Brauhn, a University of Denver graduate student in comparative politics and Program Officer at The 1010 Project, a non-profit organization supporting social reform, said.
This election marks the first transition between presidencies in the midst of an international war since that of Johnson and Nixon during Vietnam. Currently, about 150,000 troops and 30,000 military personnel are still in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"President Obama will be tasked with figuring out those parts of the past eight years he can do away with, those he can change and those that he hopes to create," Brauhn said.
One primary goal of an Obama Administration would be to restrict the power of lobbyist groups.
"Recent statements by President-[elect] Obama suggest that his transition team is actively denying lobbyists key positions in the new administration, as well as working hard to keep them marginalized," Brauhn said.
"A crucial concern of mine, and what is arguably the most important issue in terms of our domestic situation, is that our nation will view the election of Barack Obama as a pronouncement that racism has been laid to rest, or that we have somehow demonstrated, to a greater extent, that America is the land of opportunity," Kyle Jensen, a graduate teaching assistant in the English department, said.
"In raising this concern, I am not saying that we haven't witnessed a monumental historical moment by electing the first African American president in Barack Obama, nor am I saying that Obama will not strive to combat racism as the president of the United States."
"What I am saying is that we as a country need to experience this moment as a necessary call to continue resisting the racist imperatives that have dominated our country's history and current political climate," he added. "The swell of hope is an easy place in which one might get carried away, and my concern is that our hopefulness will lead to inaction."
Speculation has been swirling that Obama could reach out to former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton with the offer of filling the Secretary of State post.