Geithner once proposed Hillary Clinton for Treasury secretary He ultimately failed to make the case, but it wasn't for lack of trying. The effort illuminated one of the more intriguing relationships in Washington - the evolving rapport between President Obama and his high-wattage secretary of state. He needed to find someone who could glide through Senate confirmation, comprehend the growing debt crises, here and abroad, and communicate administration goals in last summer's debt-ceiling debate to Congress, to Wall Street and to the world. The talks gained traction inside the White House before being scuttled shortly before the debt-ceiling talks on Capitol Hill intensified, according to one former and two current administration officials. The Cabinet shuffle made sense, according to the officials, because Clinton could fulfill all those requirements. Plus, she was believed to be ready for a break. She had described in public her travel-heavy job as "grueling." Chief of Staff William Daley appeared to "slow-walk" and rob the Clinton suggestion of any momentum, according to one of the administration officials. She had never been a banker, but as a senator from New York, Clinton had cultivated many relationships within the financial sector. Some of them had been longing for the kind of attention they had received from her and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, but rarely got from Obama. And unlike Geithner, who disdained high jinks on Capitol Hill, Clinton had an intuition for political risk. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department declined to respond to an inquiry on "private recommendations from the secretary to the president." Philippe Reines, a longtime aide of Clinton and current deputy assistant secretary of state, said in an e-mail: "Without getting into private conversations, it's been crystal clear from her very first day here that Secretary Clinton is fiercely committed to this Department."