With the election still more than four months away, Republican candidate McCain and Obama, his Democratic opponent, are focused on picking vice presidential running mates.
But that has not stopped Wall Street from mulling over possibilities for the top job at Treasury.
"You would have to think that Phil Gramm is on the list for McCain," said Greg Valliere, chief strategist at Stanford Washington Research Group. Gramm, a vice chairman for UBS Investment Bank and a former Texas senator, is a senior McCain campaign official.
Also high on McCain's list would be former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, Valliere said.
For Obama, some in the financial community are intrigued by the possibility of New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner, a former official in Bill Clinton's administration.
"He's very popular on Wall Street. He understands the complexities of the markets and the credit crunch. He's got just a tremendous Rolodex," Valliere said.
Both Valliere and Marc Chandler, a currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman, said another potential candidate for Treasury secretary in an Obama administration would be Laura Tyson, a former top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. She has recently begun advising Obama. Continued...
http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSN2840338220080630