Nov 14, 2008 5:00 pm US/Pacific
Valerie Jarrett Named Obama Senior Adviser
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett disembark from his campaign plane at Denver International aiport in Denver on Sept. 29, 2008.
Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images
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Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama attend the first of three presidential debates before the 2008 election on Sept. 26, 2008, at the University of Mississippi.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President-elect Barack Obama is naming his longtime friend and supporter Valerie Jarrett to be his White House senior adviser.
Jarrett, who hired Michelle Obama for a job in the Chicago mayor's office years ago, is one of the president-elect's closest friends and advisers. Her name has been floated for several top administration jobs. But Obama settled on the senior adviser role, said a person close to the president-elect and willing to speak only on background because the decision has not been officially announced.
A White House senior adviser can handle a range of duties. President George W. Bush's top political aide Karl Rove held the title in the current administration.
Jarrett has a background in real estate and politics in Chicago.
An old family friend of Michelle and Barack Obama, Jarrett said she will be a senior adviser to the new president, reports CBS station WBBM-TV in Chicago. She will apparently have the same job title, but presumably different duties, as David Axelrod, chief political strategist for Obama.
Also Friday, Obama and his wife, Michelle, took a short break from transitional matters to give an exclusive interview to "60 Minutes" for a report that will air Sunday on CBS.
The new president is not only calling on friends, he's also reaching out to rivals in a way that echoes Abraham Lincoln's cabinet-level "Team of Rivals."
Among the many motorcades the Secret Service has taken through the streets of Chicago this week, one included Hillary Clinton as a passenger. Once Obama's chief Democratic rival, she met with him in Chicago Thursday, now a candidate to join his cabinet. Publicly, she's saying very little.
"I'm not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect's incoming administration," Clinton said.
Sen. Dick Durbin is the second most powerful U.S. senator. He served with Clinton and Obama.
"Senator Clinton is a very talented person and I don't know that any offer or decision has been made in terms of her involvement in this administration, but there are so many different things she could do," Durbin said.
Durbin lives in Abraham Lincoln's hometown, Springfield. He said Obama wants a Lincoln-style cabinet of strong leaders from every political faction to help him confront the crises America faces at home and abroad.
"He is assembling what I consider to be the strongest team for a president's cabinet in modern memory," Durbin said.
Obama's invited another rival, Sen. John McCain, to meet with him Monday at his transition headquarters in the Loop. A spokesperson said Obama wants to discuss ways the two might work together to make government more efficient and effective.
It's no surprise to longtime Obama watchers that he's using Honest Abe's cabinet as his model. Obama launched his campaign in at the Old State Capitol that was Lincoln's transition headquarters. And he's read a recent book about Lincoln's cabinet, "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Obama also met with New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in Chicago about the secretary of state job.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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