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The most intriguing trend in Barack Obama's early appointments is the absence of a conventional political design.

There's been no pattern of placating party constituencies or even of consistently favoring early supporters. Obama hasn't tied himself in knots, as Bill Clinton did, by self-consciously trying to appoint an "administration that looks like America." Yet women and minorities are steadily moving into key positions. Obama has mixed long-standing confidantes with people he might not have recognized a year ago in the Senate elevator.

If there is a diagram to Obama's choices, it's idiosyncratic and personal. Obama doesn't seem to be responding to anyone's vision of what his inner circle should look like except his own. And that may provide a much larger clue to his thinking as he nears the presidency. These first decisions could be read as a declaration of independence. They suggest that Obama feels unusual latitude to set his course without overly deferring to his party's traditional power centers, or even to the expectations of those who helped elect him.

That attitude ripples through Obama's first personnel decisions. Yes, he's already tapped for key White House jobs prominent campaign aides such as David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs and Valerie Jarrett, and he's slated for Cabinet positions some high-profile supporters from the Democratic primaries, including Tom Daschle and Janet Napolitano.

But Obama's early selections have included at least as many who joined his team only after his primary struggle with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. That lists starts with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and top economic adviser Larry Summers. Timothy Geithner, Obama's Treasury secretary nominee, and Peter Orszag, his choice as budget director, held jobs that required neutrality through the general election. So did retired Marine Gen. James Jones, now expected as national security adviser.

Even some of Obama's most grizzled press aides had never heard of Christina Romer before Obama named her to head his Council of Economic Advisers. And then there's the expectation that Obama will name Clinton as secretary of State and reappoint Robert Gates, the current Defense secretary. There may be some inevitable bumps as Obama's new and old squads mesh. But overall, on domestic and foreign policy, that possible roster would constitute a brainy, tested and strikingly centrist team.

By expanding beyond his familiar circle so quickly, Obama may be signaling that he prizes competence over loyalty -- and that he wants a broad bandwidth of advice. "He is going to reach out and include people who probably aren't used to being included," said one senior adviser. Above all, Obama is revealing his confidence that he can hold together a team of divergent instincts.

And while the emerging team includes some edgy personalities, it doesn't yet incorporate major choices that would be considered champions of the liberal party interest groups, like labor or the Internet left. Obama might pick some who fit that description before he's done, but in filling his inner circle, he's moved more to challenge than comfort those groups (especially with his putative foreign policy team). In doing so, he may be sending them a message. "He doesn't go into it owing any of these groups much of anything, because we built our own structure from the ground up, and that's basically the way he will be able to govern," said another longtime aide. Congressional barons could face the same attitude. "The fact that we didn't start [our campaign] with a bunch of the old-guard chairmen," continued the aide, "will allow us to operate more freely."

That isn't just bravado. Obama won the most decisive Democratic victory since 1964, attracting a diverse geographic and demographic coalition. And, as his adviser noted, Obama built a campaign organization passionately and personally attached to him, with (as the Washington Post recently reported) over 3 million donors and fully 13 million names on his e-mail list. No president has ever taken office with such a precisely identified and easily activated personal network.

All of this provides Obama enormous leverage to impose his will on his coalition and will leave him no excuses if he fails to do so. Operating from such a strong position, Obama can pursue a change agenda targeted at the center of the country, not merely the center of his party. In his initial appointments, he's shown that inclination. But the real test will come when Obama decides whether to reward his base or reach beyond it in the legislative maneuvering to come on economic recovery, health care, energy and his other priorities. Those policy decisions will confirm or reverse the promising steps toward inclusion he's taken with his eclectic first decisions on personnel.