Sources Say Skinner at Top of List to Replace Sununu : White House: Several other Bush advisers are said to be in the running for post. The President’s campaign team is expected to be unveiled soon.

The White House said Wednesday that “a number of candidates” are under consideration for the powerful job of chief of staff, but sources close to President Bush said that Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner, an experienced politician from Illinois, remains at the top of the list to replace John H. Sununu.

Sununu himself, in an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live” Wednesday night, said he expected Skinner to get the post.

“My guess--and it’s just a guess--is that it will be Sam, but that’s just a guess,” he said. “Sam’s a great man, he’ll do a wonderful job.”

With Sununu’s resignation from the top staff job, Bush also was said by Administration officials and others close to the White House to be nearing completion of the top tier of his reelection campaign organization.

These sources said that he is putting together a team under Commerce Secretary Robert A. Mosbacher that would include several longtime Bush political advisers who had objected to working with the abrasive Sununu.

They said that Bush, pressing to overcome an appearance of disarray at the White House in the final weeks of Sununu’s tenure, hopes to unveil the team as early as today or Friday. He leaves early Friday for a visit to Ontario, Calif., and on Saturday for Hawaii, where he will mark the 50th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

“Things look very good for Skinner,” one senior White House official said.

However, this official and others said that the job has not been formally offered to the 53-year-old transportation secretary. And opponents of Skinner said that his “high-profile” style and questions about whether he could work with the Bush campaign organization could yet doom his prospects.

Bush, who prefers to keep such matters closely held, has a penchant for making key personnel announcements with little advance fanfare and, when possible, without tipping his hand. Thus, officials said that they are not ready to rule out several other well-known Republicans who have been mentioned as possible successors to Sununu.

Among those also said to be under consideration are Education Secretary Lamar Alexander, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, who held the job during the Gerald R. Ford Administration, former Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-Minn.), former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who is now president of Drew University in Madison, N.J., and Fred Malek, a former Richard M. Nixon Administration official who advises Bush.

Vice President Dan Quayle talked for “quite a while” with Bush early Wednesday morning, an Administration official said. He also spent time contacting Sununu’s conservative allies to determine what they thought about several potential candidates for the job. Quayle’s report on Skinner, the official said, was “pretty good.”

However, another source close to the White House said that conservatives objected that Skinner favors the right of women to seek an abortion and that he is “too willing to make a deal.”

Another Republican, a lobbyist who opposes Skinner, predicted that the transportation secretary, known for his aggressiveness and his penchant for seeking center stage, could drag Bush into many of the same troubled areas as Sununu.

“You’ll wind up with the same kinds of congressional relations problems and image problems and a couple of problems Sununu didn’t get around to,” he said, adding that Skinner “has been campaigning assiduously” for the job--an approach that Bush would find distasteful.

At the White House, Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that he knows of no timetable for a decision. Sununu, whose resignation was announced Tuesday after a stormy three years in the job, leaves the post Dec. 15 but will remain as counselor to the President for a transition period ending March 1.

“The President is still considering a number of candidates,” Fitzwater said. “He’ll be talking to friends and advisers in the next few days. He’s been doing that, certainly today and yesterday. And we’ll have a decision as soon as possible.”

Among others, Bush met Wednesday with Mosbacher over lunch and with Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Treasury Secretary Nicholas F. Brady. All three are longtime political confidants.

Among those said by one Republican source to be ready to move into top campaign jobs are Malek, who would be placed in charge of day-to-day operations, and two other longtime Bush advisers: Robert S. Teeter, who would become the chief campaign strategist, and Richard Bond, who would take on the job of political director.

Who Will Replace Sununu?

These are some of the candidates:

Transportation Secretary Samuel K. Skinner is reported to head the list. Skinner, 53, is Bush’s friend and political adviser, a former federal district attorney in Chicago.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, President Gerald R. Ford’s chief of staff.

Former Rep. Bill Frenzel, a Minnesota Republican.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, president of Drew University.

Fred Malek, a Bush adviser and former Richard M. Nixon Administration official.