Bush to meet with leading Democrat

Congressional sources said Breaux, a moderate and a dealmaker, was unlikely to quit the evenly split Senate because his departure would hand the majority to Republicans. If Breaux Left the Senate, Louisiana’s Republican governor, Mike Foster, would name his replacement — most likely a fellow Republican.

Bush’s Communications Director Karen Hughes pointed out that Breaux had led bipartisan efforts to reform Medicare and Social Security and was someone the governor had frequently praised for his ability to work across party lines.

Breaux was the only Democrat Bush called in the waning days of the five-week postelection battle for the presidency.

"This is part of Gov. Bush’s reaching out to the Democratic Party," Hughes said.

She declined to reveal if the President-elect would offer Breaux a Cabinet post, saying only that "they will have a wide-ranging discussion about a variety of issues."

In his first speech as President-elect Wednesday night, Bush urged Americans to leave politics behind and seek common ground.

Throughout the day on Thursday, he tried to set a positive example, speaking with Clinton, Democratic congressional leaders, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who has raised concerns about voting problems in Florida.

Jackson said he asked Bush to appoint a presidential Commission on voter reform, with a particular focus on voting irregularities in Florida, citing cases of voters being turned away from the polls because they were mistakenly identified as felons, lack of translation assistance, and other problems.

"In some sense his own legitimacy depends upon how he handles the first crisis. And that first crisis looms out of Florida, where thousands of people who voted, their vote was not counted," Jackson told MSNBC. "You can’T heal a wound unless you get the glass out. There’s a lot of glass in Florida."

The first of Bush’s Cabinet or White House staff picks was likely to come on Saturday when he is to be at his expansive ranch near Crawford, a two-hour drive from Austin, and it could be his choice of retired Gen. Colin Powell as his secretary of state or Condoleezza Rice as his national security adviser.

For months, Bush has broadly hinted that Powell, one of the architects of the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi forces from Kuwait, would be offered a Cabinet post if he won. Powell was a guest at "Prairie Chapel" ranch last month. Bush revealed last week that Rice was on his short list.

"There’s a possibility the governor may have anannouncement at his ranch on Saturday," Hughes told reporters.

Gore’s running mate, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, predicted Powell would sail through his Senate confirmation hearings.

"He’s widely admired in the Senate. So if he is the President-elect’s choice, I don’T think he’ll have much trouble being confirmed by the United States Senate," the senator from Connecticut told CNN’s "Larry King Live."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert said US voters sent politicians a clear message in the 2000 election: "I think what the American people are saying is, ‘Hey, let’s get something done … Let’s not do all this political snarling back and forth.’"

He said he expected Bsh to begin uniting congressional Democrats and Republicans when he came to Washington next week.

"President-elect Bush is committed to bringing Democrats and Republicans together, starting with the leadership on Monday, to try to get something done," Hastert told public television’s "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." "That’s what he’s been able to demonstrate in Texas … and we’re looking forward to it.

Bush’s transition accepted $5 million in federal funds and the keys to its new offices on Thursday and said it aimed to complete Bush’s Cabinet by Inauguration Day on January 20.

"We will move as rapidly as we can to have a Cabinet in place by the time of the inauguration," Vice President-elect Dick Cheney told reporters at the private Virginia offices where the transition has toiled for the past two weeks.

Scrambling to fill up to 6,000 jobs, the Bush transition had already received more than 21,000 applications from job seekers, 99 percent of them by electronic mail.

Up to 1,200 jobs require Senate confirmation. Top Cabinet and other officials must be investigated by the FBI and then approved by the Senate.

Cheney said Bush was trying to adhere to previous transition schedules under which the Senate would hold confirmation votes right after the inauguration.