Dubya's Treasury Chief.

• Author: BARNES, FRED
• Position: Candidates for the post of Treasury Secretary should George W. Bush become president

Assuming Texas Governor George W. Bush wins in November, who gets the nod as Treasury Secretary? A Washington-based Bush-watcher outlines the field.

We already have a pretty good idea of what the Cabinet and White House staff will look like in George W. Bush's administration, should there be one. General Colin Powell will be Secretary of State. Senator John McCain has a good shot at Secretary of Defense, if all goes well in his days of campaigning with Bush. Oilman Don Evans, Bush's best friend and chairman of his campaign, is likely to be Commerce Secretary or counselor to the president. Two governors, Jim Gilmore of Virginia and Frank Keating of Oklahoma, are vying for Attorney General. The one who loses will be drug czar. Another governor, Mark Racicot of Montana, is a dead certainty for Interior Secretary.

But what about Treasury Secretary, the most important economic post in Washington? Bush may have an idea about whom he'd pick, if he defeats Al Gore in November. But he hasn't let on. We know the likely economic players on the White House staff. Economist John Taylor of Stanford, who's advised Bush during the campaign, is the best bet for chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. For one thing, he wants the job. The influential post of budget director is probably John Cogan's for the asking, as his only potential rival is retiring Rep. John Kasich, who was chairman of the House Budget Committee and is well liked by Bush. Cogan is also a Stanford professor and Bush adviser. Both Cogan and Taylor worked at the White House in earlier Republican administrations. But, again, for Treasury, no leading prospect has emerged.

There is, however, a new job description and a field of a half-dozen candidates from which the new Treasury Secretary is likely to be drawn. And there's an agenda -- cutting taxes deeply and reforming Social Security with partial privatization -- that the new secretary must be adept at touting and pushing through Congress. The agenda alone eliminates one major corporate figure, Jack Welch of General Electric, from contention. He's soon to retire, but he's always left public policy to others at GE, notably Robert Wright of NBC. Welch is simply not viewed as someone who could effectively market Bush's program.

Welch fits the model for Treasury Secretary of a generation or two ago. But the model has changed, partly because of the economy, partly because of Robert Rubin, President Clinton's Treasury Secretary from 1994 to 1999. Rubin's success may be overrated and his...