OBAMA

Obama may give Clinton purview in area where they differed most

If President-elect Barack Obama taps Senator Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state, he would be giving her oversight of an area where the two former rivals diverged sharply during their prolonged primary battle: foreign policy.

From their first clashes in the summer of 2007 through spring this year, Obama and Clinton fought bitterly over who had a deeper understanding of the world, exchanging sharp words over their international experience and their views on diplomacy, military strikes against terrorists, the right approach toward Iran, and the genesis of the Iraq war.

It is the one arena in which Obama and Clinton articulated significantly different visions. On a host of other issues - taxes, healthcare, jobs, free trade, investments in renewable energy - their positions were often indistinguishable.

Obama met with Clinton last week in Chicago, reportedly to discuss the secretary of state job, as the president-elect looks to begin filling his Cabinet. Obama is also said to be considering Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, both of whom have significant foreign affairs experience for the post.

Although Obama's aides will not comment on potential appointments, the possibility of Clinton as the face of the United States around the globe has riveted the political world and added another wrinkle to the fraught relationship between two of Washington's leading Democrats.

"It would be a very politically mature move on his part," said Henry R. Nau, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University who has worked at the State Department and National Security Council. "It would reflect a great deal of self-confidence in his leadership role."

Some analysts say that if Obama picks Clinton, it would prove his assertions that he draws inspiration from Abraham Lincoln, who asked former political opponents to help him lead the country through the Civil War.

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who chronicled Lincoln's deft political maneuvering in her 2005 book "Team of Rivals," said Obama's consideration of Clinton for secretary of state is analogous to Lincoln's selecting William Seward for the same post in 1861. Seward was considered the favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, as Clinton had been for this year's Democratic nomination. Though initially dejected from the loss, Goodwin said, Seward eventually accepted Lincoln's offer to join his Cabinet and the two men developed a productive friendship.

"The parallel with Hillary is almost eerie," she said yesterday.

The tranquil early days of the primary contest between Clinton and Obama came to an abrupt end in July 2007, when Obama, during a debate in Charleston, S.C., said that he would be willing to meet, without precondition, with the leaders of rogue nations such as North Korea, Cuba, and Iran - an answer that came to define his views on diplomacy throughout the campaign.