Profile: Kathleen Sebelius

As a popular and successful Democratic governor in a staunchly Republican state, Kathleen Sebelius caught many political observers' attention.

Ms Sebelius was tipped as a possible running-mate for Obama

So it was no surprise when she emerged as one of the frontrunners to became Barack Obama's running-mate in the 2008 presidential election.

Joe Biden beat her to that job, but her period in the spotlight, familiarity with healthcare policy and close relationship to President Obama made her an obvious choice to fill the vacancy at Health and Human Services, when Mr Obama's first choice to head the department - Tom Daschle - was forced to withdraw his name over tax irregularities.

Ms Sebelius, 60, inherited her political instincts from her father, John Gilligan, a former Democratic governor of Ohio.

Conservative state

She grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and attended Summit Country Day School in the city, before going to college at Trinity Washington University in Washington DC.

She moved to Kansas (the home state of her husband, Gary) in 1974, working first at the Kansas Department of Corrections and then as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association, before being elected to the state's House of Representatives in 1986.

After eight years as a State Representative, Ms Sebelius won election to become the state's Insurance Commissioner, a shock state-wide victory for a Democrat in such a conservative state.

As Insurance Commissioner, Ms Sebelius gained hands-on experience of the health insurance sector. She revamped the agency, updated its aging technology and made it more consumer-friendly, in the process being named one of Governing magazine's public officials of the year in 2001.

Riding on the success of her stint at the Insurance Commission, and taking advantage of divisions within the Kansas Republican Party, Ms Sebelius won a narrow victory in the state's 2002 gubernatorial election.

Her first term was a successful one. Time magazine listed her as one of the five best governors in the US in 2005, praising her for eliminating the state's $1.1bn (�786m) debt without raising taxes or cutting education funding.

Tempting

She had a constructive relationship with Republicans in the state. Indeed, both of her running-mates (John E Moore and Mark Parkinson) left the Republican Party in order to run on her ticket.

She won re-election easily in 2006, was hailed as a rising star of the Democratic Party, and she was asked to give the party's official response to President George W Bush's State of the Union address in 2008.

Her early endorsement of Mr Obama led to speculation that the Democratic nominee might pick her as his running-mate and, after the announcement that Joe Biden had been picked, campaign insiders hinted that she had been one of the top two or three contenders for the position.

By Kansas statute, she was limited to just two terms as governor, and political observers expected her to make a run for one of the state's senate seats in 2010, especially when she ruled herself out of the running to be President Obama's Commerce Secretary.

But the prize of spearheading the new administration's healthcare reform efforts appears to have proved tempting enough to change her mind about joining Mr Obama's team.

Her role is set to be slightly different from the post envisaged for Tom Daschle - she will not serve as both Cabinet Secretary and head of the White House Office of Health Reform, as he would have done.

As such, she will be more concerned with running the health bureaucracy, and will have less to do with the congressional battle to pass reform legislation.

But if her name is associated with a successful reform effort, it will not hurt her chances if she later decides to run for that Kansas senate seat - or sets her sights on even higher office.

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