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Washington: Who would President Barack Obama or President John McCain choose as the next US Treasury secretary?
With the election still more than four months away, Republican candidate McCain and Obama, his Democratic opponent, are focused on picking vice presidential running mates.
But that has not stopped Wall Street from mulling over possibilities for the top job at Treasury.
"You would have to think that Phil Gramm is on the list for McCain," said Greg Valliere, chief strategist at Stanford Washington Research Group. Gramm, a vice chairman for UBS Investment Bank and a former Texas senator, is a senior McCain campaign official. Also high on McCain's list would be former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, Valliere said.
For Obama, some in the financial community are intrigued by the possibility of New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner, a former official in Bill Clinton's administration.
"He's very popular on Wall Street. He understands the complexities of the markets and the credit crunch. He's got just a tremendous Rolodex," Valliere said.
Both Valliere and Marc Chandler, a currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, said another potential candidate for Treasury secretary in an Obama administration would be Laura Tyson, a former top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.
She has recently begun advising Obama. Depending on who wins the November 4 election, McCain, an Arizona senator, or Obama, an Illinois senator, would not begin any formal selection process for the Treasury post or any other Cabinet job until after the vote.
President George W. Bush and his current Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, do not leave office until January 20 next year.
Nevertheless, there is always strong interest among investors in speculation about the Treasury secretary, who manages a vast federal department involved in everything from printing coins to helping regulate banks.
Markets look to the Treasury secretary as the main spokesman for US dollar policy, a crisis manager in times of economic turbulence and as one of the top - if not the top - adviser shaping a president's economic plans.
Retired General Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate now supporting Barack Obama, said on Sunday John McCain's military service does not automatically qualify him to be commander in chief.
Underscoring during a national television appearance a position he has been expressing for several weeks, Clark said performing heroic military service is not a substitute for gaining command experience.
"In the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk," he said on CBS' Face the Nation. "He [McCain who retired as a Navy captain] has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has travelled all over the world, but he hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said.
"That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded - that wasn't a wartime squadron." Moderator Bob Schieffer, who raised the issue by citing similar remarks Clark has made previously, noted that Obama hadn't had those experiences nor had he ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down.
"Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark replied.
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