Speculation swirls about Obama appointments

While President-elect Barack Obama enjoyed a few days with his family after a hard-fought election, speculation swirled in the nation's capital around potential administration appointees.

Obama pivoted quickly to begin filling out his team on Wednesday, selecting hard-charging Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff while aides stepped up the pace of transition work that had been cloaked in pre-election secrecy.

Several Democrats confirmed that Emanuel had been offered the job. While it was not clear he had accepted, a rejection would amount to an unlikely public snub of the new president-elect within hours of an electoral college landslide.

Obama he has promised to hold a news conference later in the week. As president-elect, he begins receiving highly classified briefings from top intelligence officials Thursday.

In offering the post of White House chief of staff to Emanuel, Obama turned to a fellow Chicago politician with a far different style from his own, a man known for his bluntness as well as his single-minded determination.

Emanuel was a political and policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House. Leaving that, he turned to investment banking, then won a Chicago-area House seat six years ago. In Congress, he moved quickly into the leadership. As chairman of the Democratic campaign committee in 2006, he played an instrumental role in restoring his party to power after 12 years in the minority.

Emanuel maintained neutrality during the long primary battle between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, not surprising given his long-standing ties to the former first lady and his Illinois connections with Obama.

The day after the election there already was jockeying for Cabinet appointments.

Several Democrats said Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who won a new six-year term on Tuesday, was angling for secretary of state. They spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss any private conversations.

Kerry's spokeswoman, Brigid O'Rourke, disputed the reports. "It's not true. It's ridiculous," she said.

Announcement of the transition team came in a written statement from the Obama camp.

The group is headed by John Podesta, who served as chief of staff under former President Clinton; Pete Rouse, who has been Obama's chief of staff in the Senate; and Valerie Jarrett, a friend of the president-elect and campaign adviser.

Several Democrats described a sprawling operation well under way. Officials had kept deliberations under wraps to avoid the appearance of overconfidence in the weeks leading to Tuesday's election.

Obama Offers Chief of Staff to Rahm Emanuel

Obama offered the job of chief of staff to Rep. Rahm Emanuel, ABC News' Jake Tapper reported the day after the election.

Emanuel, a veteran of Bill Clinton's administration and a close political ally of Obama from Chicago, hasn't immediately given his answer.

Obama likes the fact that Emanuel knows policy, knows politics, knows Capitol Hill and has told associates that he knows that Emanuel will "have his back," ABC News' chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos said of the offer.

Obama didn't have time to savor his history making victory that made him America's first African-American to win the White House with a landslide victory over Republican John McCain. The Illinois senator amassed 338 electoral votes to McCain's 162, although three states -- Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina -- are too close to project.

President Bush in a Rose Garden statement congratulated Obama on his "impressive" victory and noted the historic significance of electing the country's first black president.

"No matter how they cast their votes, all Americans can be proud of the history that was made," Bush said.

"It will be a stirring sight to watch Barack Obama, his wife Michelle and their two beautiful daughters stop over the threshhold of the White House," he said.

The president acknowleged "we are embarking on a period of change in Washington," and promised his "complete cooperation" in the transition over the next two months.

The sweeping triumph, which included winning six states that had voted Republican in 2004, triggered euphoric crowds to turn out in Chicago where Obama claimed his victory as well as in New York City's Times Square and Harlem, and outside the White House in Washington, D.C.

By the time the dancing in the streets was over, names were being bandied over the airwaves about who Obama will name to his cabinet.

The President-elect has signaled that he will rely heavily on former members of Bill Clinton's administration and that he intends to include several Republicans on his team.

Obama intends to quickly settle on a secretary of treasury to help bring stability to the country's shaky economy.

"If people think there is a direction, a vision, a plan that we're moving forward, you can change the psychology, help the markets to settle down," Bill Clinton's former chief of staff Mack McLarty told "Good Morning America."

Timothy Geithner, president of New York's Federal Reserve Bank, and former treasury secretary in the Clinton administration Larry Summers are believed to be the leading contenders.