WASHINGTON — The roster shaping up for the Barack Obama administration is starting to look a little familiar, with an ironic pattern emerging as one name after another is added to it.
A striking number of new and potential team members can trace their professional history to the same political birthplace -- the administration of one President Bill Clinton.
There's Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, of course, the former first lady now on track to become secretary of State. And Rep. Rahm Emanuel, the former Bill Clinton aide who will be Obama's chief of staff. And Eric H. Holder Jr., once deputy to former Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and now Obama's likely pick for attorney general. There's the new White House lawyer, the budget director, and so on.
For all his talk of transformation, Obama's earliest decisions suggest something odd: The more things change, the more they look like the 1990s. Some see a Clinton Restoration in the making.
"Voters hoping to see Obama bring a lot of fresh faces to D.C. must be disappointed," said Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. "So far, it's been more like Clinton.gov than Change.gov."
It makes sense that the incoming Democratic president might fish for talent in the same pond as the last Democratic president. If Obama is looking for depth of expertise, there's a good chance that many job prospects were in or around the White House a decade ago.
But there's a certain irony to the developing pattern, given Obama's campaign pledge not to spend the next four years "refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s."
"There's no question about the talent level," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and senior policy advisor to Republican Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. "They have a public relations problem in the appearance of not really fulfilling the, quote, 'change' mandate."
The Clinton alums began to populate the new team right away, when Obama picked Emanuel from the Illinois congressional delegation for the first big assignment. Emanuel, who had served as political director in the Clinton White House, agreed to help assemble and captain the Obama team as chief of staff.
Since then, the Clinton names have flowed plentifully, with more than two dozen set either to serve on an Obama transition team or to actually take positions in the new administration. Gregory Craig, who was President Clinton's impeachment lawyer, will serve as White House counsel. Vice President Al Gore's chief of staff, Ron Klain, will do the same job for Joe Biden. Gore's counsel, Lisa Brown, will be staff secretary.
