Don't count Erskine Bowles out as White House chief of staff yet. He's been telling everyone he wants to return to North Carolina and his investmentbanking business. But President Clinton has a way to keep him in Washington: entitlement reform. Bowles, says a senior White House aide, is bound to be excited by the challenge of making sweeping Social Security and Medicare reform a part of Clinton's legacy, and the president plans to take up this issue in the fall.
Also, there's no logical successor to Bowles as chief of staff. Budget chief Franklin Raines would have the inside track, but Clinton prefers that Bowles stick around.