With all the talk about Bank of America’s controversial CEO Ken Lewis announcing that he will step down at the end of the year, media outlets are speculating on the succession race. Will BofA stick to its traditional roots by naming a banker, or will it go outside and bring in a Wall Street executive, perhaps with ties to Merrill Lynch?

According to media site, Wall Street Folly, the key candidates are as follows: Brian Moynihan, the recently appointed head of consumer banking, is believed to be a leading candidate. Tom Montag, a former Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch & Co. executive and BofA’s chief of investment banking, is another likely contender. CFO Joe Price, Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, and Sallie Krawcheck, head of wealth management, are also potential candidates. Another intriguing name suggested as a candidate is former BofA CFO Al de Molina, the CEO at GMAC Financial Corp…

CNBC’s online editor Charles Gasparino said his sources told him that Sally Krawcheck was a great brokerage analyst at Sanford Bernstein but not a strong CFO at Citigroup, so Gasparino downplayed the notion that Krawcheck would be selected.

“They could go outside or pick one of the two board members in the interim,” said Gasparino on CNBC this morning. He seemed to think the bank would pick either Chad Gifford, the former CEO of FleetBoston who sold the bank to Bank of America in 2004, or William Boardman, a former Banc One executive, to run the bank for a year before naming a permanent replacement for Lewis.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, William Cohan, author of the best seller “House of Cards,” chronicling the downfall of Bear Stearns, told Bloomberg TV that another potential successor could be John Thain, who was ousted by Lewis last year.

While controversial, Cohan said Thain is “one whose reputation has been besmirched unfairly” and ought to be given another chance. Cohan also cited several other candidates including Bob Steel, the CEO of Wachovia who is a former Goldman Sachs partner; Greg Fleming the former president of Merrill Lynch and Zoe Cruz, the former co-president at Morgan Stanley.

Here’s the CNBC video interview.