US revision: American Cabinet

One of the modern features of American cabinets is its role in reaching out to the people and representing the diversity evident in the USA. Here are some notes on Obama’s.

Bill Clinton said that he wanted a Cabinet that looks like America, and since then any successive president would be expected to follow this pattern of making Cabinet a portrait in miniature of the USA.

Obama ties with Clinton in have four women: Sebelius (HHS); Napolitano (Homeland Sec); Solis (Labour); Clinton (State). This is less than Bush who had five women in his first Cabinet.

There are three Asian Americans: Chu (Energy); Shinseki (Veterans); Locke (Commerce).

Two Hispanics (there would have been more if Richardson had not withdrawn): Solis and Salazar (Interior).

Further hyphenated Americans can be listed if we include La Hood (Transport) who is a Lebanese American and Napolitano, an Italian American.

Holder (AG) is African American - and the first black to become America’s chief lawyer.

We should also note that Obama has reached across the aisle in appointing two from the GOP: Gates (Def) and LaHood.

Regional interests also come into play, as increasingly politicians seek to portray their interests as lying not just in the traditional power centres of the north east and Washington DC. Vilsack (Agr) hails from the very important farm state of Iowa. In fact the midwest is very well represented by including Salazar (Colorado), LaHood (Illinois) and Sebelius (Kansas) and the west fares reasonably through Solis (California) and Locke (Washington), and we could include Napolitano (Arizona) also.