yeah, I was very surprised at how unimpressive Romney's list is. For someone who was arguably the front-runner for a while and who's certainly a top-3 contender, Romney has managed to attract very few even-medium-weight hitters. You'd think *some* plausible future SecState would decide to bet on Romney, even if without any commitment or conviction.

If Obama somehow rights his ship and wins this thing, look for Samantha Power to be some sort of special adviser to the president for something or other. Either that or head of policy planning at State (though that would take her out of the White House). The scuttlebutt is that she very much "has his ear."

Personally I think this is a moot point, but any of the Republicans would more probably try to pull Robert Zoellick back from the World Bank. He's an abler diplomat than any of the other people listed, has long experience with the State Department, and is not so closely identified with the worst Bush administration failures as is Armitage.

Brent Scowcroft? I don't really think the ability to put one's name above an occasional Op-Ed suggests the ability to run a Cabinet Department. The man is in his 80s, for Pete's sake.

When you mention Ken Weinstein, I assume you are talking about the CEO of the Hudson Institute?

I see Charlie Hill as a far more likely Foggy Bottom boy than any of the ones you mentioned for Rudy. And he was assistant to Schultz.

Dan,
Funny that you focus on NSA and Sec of State, as the most important (most destructive?) foreign policy post during this administration has been Secretary of Defense. We could look at the list and figure that one out, I suppose, but I just wanted to suggest that a focus on these other positions might be missing the really big elephant in the room, particularly since the US will still be enmeshed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and other places with steep politico-military stakes in 2009.

Dennis Ross would take a major step up in protocol rank if he were named Secretary of State. I have no doubt that he could handle the job.

With respect to the Democrats, it is worth remembering that the last five Republican administrations before the current one all had strong Secretaries of State. Democratic administration have tended to have weaker ones, beginning with Kennedy's administration. During Clinton's administration the role of the State Department in making and implementing foreign policy weakened dramatically, both in absolute terms and relative to the Department of Defense; the Department's foreign aid programs were cut, and its public diplomacy function decimated. This is one Clinton policy that the younger Bush did not repudiate.

Now, from my point of view what this means is that the next Secretary of State needs to make building the institutional strength of his department first, second and third on his list of things to do. But all three of the leading Democratic candidates are foreign policy novices -- they will all have domestic constituencies screaming for their attention, and the foreign affairs issues that will take up most of their time (Iraq and Afghanistan) will inevitably have State playing a supporting role to the Pentagon. In addition, Obama and Edwards are likely to be sensitive to the perception of being overshadowed, and will resist appointing a strong Secretary of State for that reason. Clinton would not have this problem to the same degree, and if she appointed Holbrooke would get a potentially strong Secretary. A second Clinton administration would face the temptations the first one (like Carter's, Johnson's and Kennedy's) yielded to -- the idea that different foreign policy issues can be farmed out to different power centers within the administration, with the public posture being that only the President is running the show. If Richard Holbrooke were to be Secretary of State -- to any Democratic President -- I expect he would either challenge this model successfully or leave within the first couple of years.

Obama is on the record about wanting to make bipartisan appointments in the senior fp positions just as JFK did. One of the Sec of S or Def Sec is likely to be a Republican.

Also significant but overlooked are those dem FP advisors who seem to be remaining neutral, incl Steinberg.

Finally, for Giuliani, it is not impossible that Foggy Bottom would go to John Bolton, who was named as a Giuliani advisor a while back.

I agree w/ Dave -- Obama has previously expressed explicit support for Lugar, Hagel, and John Warner, with the latter a long-shot in a a BHO administration. Hagel -- more likely. What about Rich. Clarke for running the NSC? Now that'd make sense.

Dan, you forgot to tell us who Ron Paul's people would be. :)