In 2008, candidate Obama was inspired by Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about Abraham Lincoln and told Time Magazine's Joe Klein that he wanted a "team of rivals" in his own cabinet.
Todd Purdum examines the issue in a July 2012 article for Vanity Fair.
Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were Obama rivals during the primary campaign. Ray LaHood, a Republican from Illinois, is Obama's Transportation Secretary. Obama retained Robert Gates from the Bush administration, and selected seeming-non-loyalists Tim Geithner to run Treasury and Leon Panetta to run the C.I.A. (Gates and Panetta later switched jobs.)
Purdum traces the evolution of presidents' cabinets and notes that the power and usefulness cabinet members used to wield is now based in White House staff members, whose numbers have grown through the years.
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