SNAP ANALYSIS: Obama's bipartisan push slips with Gregg pull-out

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's "Team of Rivals" cabinet lost a member on Thursday with Republican Senator Judd Gregg's withdrawal of his nomination to be Commerce secretary.

Gregg, who said he was dropping out as Commerce nominee because of differences over policy, would have been the third Republican in Democrat Obama's team.

So much for bipartisanship?

Not exactly, but the withdrawal is another blow to Obama's campaign pledge to curb bickering between the two main U.S. political parties. It distracts from his efforts to focus on the challenges of fighting recession and a global financial crisis.

It also adds to the near comedy of errors that the process of nominating cabinet officials has become for the president, whose aides like to call him "no drama" Obama.

* A respected lawmaker and accomplished negotiator, Gregg is the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. But his status did not translate into votes from his party in support of the Obama administration's massive economic stimulus package that is currently nearing completion in the Democratic-controlled Congress.

"Judd is a master of reaching across the aisle to get things done," Obama had said at the White House when he introduced Gregg as his nominee.

Maybe not so much. If Gregg had really been able to get things done, getting Republican support for the stimulus bill would have been the time to do it.

* The White House was clearly annoyed by the Gregg fiasco. Soon after Gregg said he was pulling out, Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs released a terse statement saying Gregg had reached out to be considered for the job. He added:

"Once it became clear after his nomination that Senator Gregg was not going to be supporting some of President Obama's key economic priorities, it became necessary for Senator Gregg and the Obama administration to part ways. We regret that he has had a change of heart."

* What's the deal with Commerce? Gregg is the second nominee to back out of the running for that department. The first was New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. The vacancy leaves a post that is supposed to help address the nation's economic ills empty, while Obama -- who took office on January 20 -- is trying to hit the ground running.

* At least he didn't have tax issues. Gregg, who at first accepted Obama's offer during a formal press conference at the White House, is the latest in a string of high profile people to call it quits. Former Senator Tom Daschle, who was supposed to spearhead a reform of the healthcare industry, withdrew because of personal tax issues. A lower level official at the Office of Management and Budget did the same.

All three moves complicate Obama's ability to govern. The president admitted he had "screwed up" over Daschle.

With Gregg, the desire for bipartisanship may have trumped obvious political differences that both sides simply could not ignore.

(Additional reporting by Ross Colvin and Caren Bohan, editing by Patricia Zengerle and Frances Kerry)