Nov 14, 2008 5:08 pm US/Central
Valerie Jarrett Named Obama Senior Adviser
Obama Reaches Out To Friends, Rivals As He Assembles White House Team
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Valerie Jarrett (left), senior advisor and close friend of Sen. Barack Obama, and Obama's wife Michelle, attend the first of three presidential debates before the 2008 election on Sept. 26, 2008, at the University of Mississippi.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Valerie Jarrett, a long-time campaign adviser to President-elect Barack Obama, will be joining Obama's senior team in the White House.
The Obama team named Jarrett as a senior White House adviser. Jarrett has been one of the president-elect's closest confidants during the long run for the White House. She also has been serving on Obama's transition team.
Sources tell CBS 2 Jarrett, a former CTA Board Chairman, is taking a job at the White House.
An old family friend of Michelle and Barack Obama, Jarrett said she will be a senior adviser to the new president. 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.
CBS2's Dana Kozlov contributed to this report.
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