Obama’s future

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said last week he does not believe Hillary Clinton, if elected, will choose Barack Obama as her secretary of state.

“You can’t go from being president to taking orders from some other president—no,” the retiring Nevada Democrat said. “That wouldn’t work.”

Obama surprised many after the 2008 election—including Clinton herself—when he asked his opponent in that year’s Democratic caucuses and primaries to become secretary of state. Though their views on foreign policy differed, she won praise from most foreign policy scholars for her handling of the role.

Reid said he did not believe Obama would follow a Carter model or a (Bill) Clinton model as an ex-president. “I think he is going to try something more cerebral,” he said. But he said it was unlikely Obama would accept a university presidency: “I don’t think so, because that’s fundraising, and he won’t do that any more.”

That might suggest teaching or writing. Obama is the author of two books, was president of the Harvard Law Review, and lectured on constitutional law at the University of Chicago. “He’s a good writer,” Reid said. “He has a gift.”