Incoming presidents tend to stick it to the policy advisers who backed rival candidates. Barack Obama does not, it seems, fit that model. Almost without exception, Hillary Clinton's "who's who" list of big name advisers, such as Madeleine Albright on the foreign -policy side, and Bob Rubin on the economic side, have been welcomed into the Obama camp.

"From the day Barack was nominated, the message went out: 'Be inclusive. -Hillary's people are with us now'," says a senior foreign policy adviser to Mr Obama, who adds that the president-elect was also making a -virtue out of a necessity given how large a galaxy surrounded Mrs Clinton's campaign.