WASHINGTON: Barack Obama picked former Senate leader Tom Daschle to lead his high-risk drive to end the US healthcare crisis and Wednesday stocked his White House staff with loyal campaign aides.

The president-elect, who takes office in January, spent the day hunkered down in his Chicago transition office, but a Democratic official said he asked ex-South Dakota senator Daschle to be health and human services secretary.

Daschle, 60, will be charged with the task of shepherding healthcare reform legislation through Congress in line with Obama's campaign vow to revamp the US medical system and help 45 million Americans who have no health insurance.

The last major healthcare reform attempt by a Democratic president, piloted by Hillary Clinton during her husband Bill Clinton's administration, ended in a notorious failure.

More than a decade on, there was no indication Wednesday on whether the former first lady would accept Obama's overtures about the job of secretary of state.

The Wall Street Journal reported former president Clinton had removed a barrier to the appointment by offering to submit his future charitable and business dealings to an ethics review if his wife becomes the top US diplomat.

Some analysts have questioned whether Bill Clinton's myriad business deals, donor lists and contacts with foreign governments could raise conflicts of interest if his wife becomes the face of US foreign policy.

More than two weeks after Obama's historic election victory, there was a morsel of comfort for his defeated rival John McCain, after the final vote totals finally nudged Missouri into the Republican's column.

The Arizona senator took the heartland swing state by a wafer-thin margin of 49.4 per cent to 49.3 per cent and no recount is expected.

The result, once certified, means the total in the state-by-state Electoral College total will stand at 365 to Obama and 173 to McCain. A total of 270 was needed for victory in the November 4 election.

Sixty-two days before Obama is sworn in on January 20, he announced a raft of new top staff appointments in the White House, and offered broad hints of the make-up of his national security council team.

David Axelrod, a Chicago political consultant who is perhaps Obama's closest aide after they first met in the early 1990s, will work in the White House as senior advisor to the president.

Greg Craig, another advisor who was in at the start of Obama's presidential campaign, will serve as special counsel -- the president's top lawyer.

Craig is a former director of policy planning in the State Department and directed Bill Clinton's defense against impeachment proceedings.

"I am pleased to announce these new additions to our team," Obama said in a brief statement.

"I'll be relying on their broad and diverse experience in the months ahead as we work to strengthen our economy, reform Washington, and meet the great challenges of our time," he said.

Earlier, Obama announced a list of former campaign advisors who will lead working groups to frame policy to ensure his administration gets off to a fast start.

Daschle will lead the healthcare panel, while James Steinberg, a hot tip to be national security advisor in the Obama administration, was named to head a national security working group.

Another close foreign policy aide, Susan Rice, also tipped for a top White House or State Department national security post, will work alongside Steinberg.

Steinberg served as deputy national security advisor in Bill Clinton's administration and accompanied Obama as an unpaid aide on his trip to Europe and the Middle East in July.

Rice was assistant secretary of state for African affairs between 1997 and 2001.

Daniel Tarullo, mentioned as a possibility for a job on the president's National Economic Council, was named as head of an economic working group during the transition.

Obama's transition team said he worked through his call list of foreign leaders Wednesday, reaching Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, South African leader Kgalema Motlanthe and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

- AFP/yt