But would it be good for American foreign policy?

Allen C. Guelzo wrote in The Washington Postthat "this immense, finely boned bo… Like Lincoln, he no longer needs to worry about building electoral support for a future campaign. No Team of Rivals on the economics side.

Attlee's government, the middle Wilson years … Team of Rivals was generally well received by critics. President Obama’s second-term staffing was always going to be a risk. Maybe it is time for a shake-up. But who can persuade them to bury their egos and do so? “Team of Rivals” is an extraordinary work that sheds light on an aspect of the Lincoln presidency that many avid historical readers probably know little or nothing about, the presidential race of 1860 and the presidency of Abraham Lincoln as seen through the lenses of … He abandoned his first term’s team of rivals for a closer-knit team of loyalists. Obama's national security 'team of rivals' His choice of Gates, Clinton, and Jones reflects his goal of building a bipartisan cabinet. On the campaign trail, Mr Obama often made references to "changing the world". Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian James M. McPherson called it "an elegant, incisive study of Lincoln and leading members of his cabinet that will appeal to experts as well as to those whose knowledge of Lincoln is an amalgam of high school history and popular mythology" and stated that Goodwin addressed Lincoln's gift for coalition-building "better than any other writer".
"The whole 'team of rivals' business was oversold from the beginning," said Ross Baker, a professor at Rutgers University and an expert on the presidency. There is a fair amount of goodwill around the world awaiting Hillary Clinton, but rivals, like China and Russia, are not waiting with open arms. If Obama goes for the team of rivals approach, he'll also be repeating an approach sometimes seen here in Britain. It would also show that Obama, like Abraham Lincoln, who, as the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin showed in her book "Team of Rivals," is unafraid of tapping powerful cabinet members. A White House statement responding to the book said Obama “welcomes differences of view among his national security team.” But he has already turned away from the “team of rivals” approach. It is important to note that the team of rivals were talented and dedicated people. Only former President Barack Obama. President Obama's re-election team on Monday rolled out a campaign to recruit two million supporters to help debunk attacks on the president's record and hit back at his Republican rivals. And when Barack Obama stepped into … Thomas Friedman may be right — Democratic candidates need to form a unity ticket, a team of rivals. It was a recurrent theme of Monday's statements by the members of the national security team.