Current rumors on President Obama's candidate to head the department of Health and Human Services seem to be focusing on three candidates: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and Kansas Govenror Kathleen Sebelius.
Kathleen Sebelius has emerged as a top contender, according to a "senior administration official" in what was undoubtedly a trial balloon style leak. She wouldn't be bad, as she has experience as insurance commissioner in Kansas. However, in moving to HHS, she would take away our only real shot at winning a Senate seat in 2010. Also, this might actually be an issue where major connections inside Congress are required, and Sebelius lacks that compared to DeLauro. She is probably less progressive than DeLauro, too.
While there haven't been any news reports on it that I can find, rumors are that Phil Bredesen visited the White House last week about the position. Even without confirmation of his visit, it is well known that Bredesen is under consideration. As a health care cutting Governor in bed with the insurance industry, Bredesen would simply be a terrible, awful choice for HHS. Rumors of his consideration have sparked a backlash from health care advocates, something that cannot be said about either Sebelius or DeLauro.
Lots of other names have been floated, including an active campaign to support Howard Dean for HHS, but these are the only three names I have seen associated with direct White House consideration.
If anyone else can find news stories linking any other names with actual White House consideration, rather than random speculation or advocacy group support, please list them in the comments.
Update: Oregon Senator Ron Wyden might also be in the mix. However, the main news story that started such speculation doesn't seem to connect him to actual consideration, just "one of several prominently mentioned in Washington, D.C., health-policy circles and in news stories and blogs." Also, the speculation has not been followed up with an recent buzz.
Wyden could be a decent pick, but he is so tied to specific health care legislation--The Healthy America Act--that I'm not sure he really works for the Obama administration.
As DavidNYC noted in his Orange-to-Blue endorsement post of Jim Himes yesterday, Chris Shays has a history of pretending to be a "moderate" while voting again and again for Bush's policies.
This morning, Shays joined many in both parties in Congress by standing with Bush again on the FISA "compromise".
My new nationally syndicated newspaper column is out today, and it focuses on the new nationally syndicated newspaper column is out today, and it focuses on the Toxic Trade report the Campaign for America's Future (where I am a senior fellow at) put out this week. Read the column here or go listen to the replay of my regular Friday morning interview about the column with 760AM Denver radio host Jay Marvin (I do this interview about my column every Friday morning with Jay, who is really one of the best progressive radio hosts in the country).
As the column notes, there has been some pretty significant progress on this issue following the report, and it shows how the progressive movement is starting to build an amplification system that gets real results.
Current rumors on President Obama's candidate to head the department of Health and Human Services seem to be focusing on three candidates: Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, and Kansas Govenror Kathleen Sebelius.
