(Continued from page 25)

tional security team next month. Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, emerged as the front-runner to serve as defense secretary.
• The possible selection of Kerry and Hagel would put two decorated Vietnam War veterans -- one Navy, the other Army -- at State and the Pentagon.
• Official word on replacements for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in an Obama Cabinet remake could come as early as next week. The choice of Kerry would open a Massachusetts Senate seat, boosting the prospects for recently defeated Republican Sen. Scott Brown to win back a job in Washington.
• Kerry, a senator for nearly three decades and the current Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, has won praise from his Senate Democratic and Republican colleagues and should be confirmed easily, if nominated. He has been Obama's envoy to hot spots such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, the administration's point man in 2010 on a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and was a stand-in for Republican Mitt Romney during Obama's debate preparation.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- To get to "yes" on a "fiscal cliff" accord, Congress and the White House first might have to get to "no."
• That is, an impasse that sends them over the cliff by missing their Dec. 31 deadline to pass a major deficit-reduction plan.
• Such a breach would immediately change the political dynamics, making it easier for many lawmakers -- especially Republicans -- to agree to a second-chance compromise in the new year.
• This scenario strikes a good number of Washington insiders as irresponsible and improbable -- who knows how the markets will react? But others argue it will be easier to round up the congressional votes needed for a big compromise if the deadline passes and lawmakers rush back to Washington next month under a starkly new political reality.
• The new landscape would allow President Barack Obama to face his liberal base -- and, more importantly, let House Republicans face their conservative constituents -- and say in essence: "See, I did the best I possibly could, and it didn't work. The other side didn't blink. Now everyone's taxes have gone up, and it's time for compromise."
• ___

(Continued on page 27)