Interesting editorial I found the other day...I mentioned this a couple months ago with hardly any replies (except for Ross, Mark Sans...and other people that are in-tune with reality.)http://www.politico.com/news/s....html
Forget veepstakes. Think about Cabinet.
By: Robert M. Eisinger
July 16, 2008 04:50 AM EST
The latest sport both in- and outside the Beltway is to guess who will become John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s vice presidential nominees. This quadrennial game has advanced in many ways, most notably with the advent of political markets that allow people to wager on their preferences and watch the lag between a rumor and the rising or declining price of a potential vice presidential candidate.
Much less discussed, however, is the desire for the presidential candidates to list potential Cabinet appointments or senior staff members. While political junkies know, for example, that former Oklahoma senator (and University of Oklahoma president) David Boren endorsed Obama, there is no mention of Boren, or anyone, serving in a senior capacity in a potential Obama administration. Similarly, Robert Kagan has been mentioned as a possible senior foreign policy adviser to McCain, but there has been no discussion of his serving as a Cabinet member if McCain wins the White House.
The acknowledgement of potential Cabinet members or senior advisers would improve this year’s presidential campaign. First and foremost, announcing a governing team would help mitigate the cult of personality Americans have created in the presidency and presidential candidates. Citizens and journalists alike observe what candidates wear, as if that matters (recall Al Gore’s olive and taupe wardrobe or Obama’s lapel pin). We parse every word they utter, not only to locate misspoken words, but also because we think that the candidates’ phrases, commas and pauses will reveal something meaningful about who they are and how they will govern. We recognize that most of their speeches are canned, poll-tested and rarely extemporaneous, rendering the exercise of microanalyzing their prose all the more irrelevant. Passing offhand comments — say, to an aide or a reporter on a campaign bus — have become what constitutes a political scoop.
By announcing a governing team, the respective campaigns would likely force journalists and citizens to concentrate on individuals beyond the presidential candidate himself. We would listen to public policy experts and get a sense of how they think, what they are thinking about, what data they use and how partisan or ideologically driven they are. We would get a sense of which people the candidate trusts to tackle complex issues. We would avoid the frivolity of rumors.
No doubt this governing team idea is a risky one. Journalists may opt to parse team members’ each and every word, on and off camera. A prospective adviser’s family may be followed to the softball game or the movies. Journalists may consider concentrating on what advisers say and write, rather than divulging if they once inhaled, had an affair or hired an illegal nanny. Surely this announcement of a potential team member would require discretion on the part of the media; such prudence is not a journalistic mantra in the Internet age.
Additionally, one can envision interest groups’ reacting angrily to the announcement that their favorite advocate is not on the nominee’s A-list. Even if the presidential nominee vetted some of the names through key groups (a dubious idea), there would be tension, disappointment or perhaps even outrage that one person is on a list but another is not.
I suggest that the McCain and Obama camps defy conventional wisdom. At minimum, they could list 50 key paid and unpaid advisers on their respective websites. Rather than specify a person for a Cabinet position, candidates could list, for example, five policy experts who advise their campaigns on taxes, military and defense issues, trade, civil liberties and civil rights, foreign affairs, entitlement reform, health care, transportation, education and the environment. If more advisers come on board, list them. Such people, if listed, agree that they are considering a senior post if their candidate were to win. Each would be allowed to speak candidly about policy matters broadly and specifically, even allowing for the possibility that some advisers may not agree with one another.
Better yet, why not have the key policy advisers and potential Cabinet members from both camps debate and discuss policies with one another, without McCain or Obama present? “Winning the War on Terror” or “Entitlement Reform and the Need for Sacrifice” are two debates that would likely attract large audiences.
Let’s stop pretending that presidential candidates are omniscient and worthy of tireless analysis. Let’s acknowledge that someone is writing their policy briefs and that a handful of wise individuals are informing them about a wide array of issues confronting the nation and the world. Let’s inject a dose of intellectual, wonkish discourse — one that is divorced from horserace journalism or trivial discussion about who is wearing what or what may have been uttered in confidence or in haste. Few question that this year’s election is important; it is time to reevaluate and reform the information we digest to choose the next commander in chief.
Robert M. Eisinger is a political science professor at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., and the author of “The Evolution of Presidential Polling” (Cambridge University Press).
© 2008 Capitol News Company, LLC
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