How Will They Manage?
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, July 31, 2008 | 04:05 PM
By Tom Shoop | Thursday, July 31, 2008 | 04:05 PM
My colleague Matt Yglesias raises a good point about the nature of this particular presidential campaign:
The presidency, after all, involves significant managerial challenges. And neither McCain nor Barack Obama has ever been a mayor or a governor or run an executive agency. Neither has ever run a company. McCain was a Navy officer, but he didn't achieve the kind of rank where he had substantial managerial responsibilities -- he flew airplanes, he didn't command ships. For both of them, their presidential campaigns are the largest enterprises they've ever run. That's not good preparation for the White House in either case, but we don't have much else to go on.
I've noted before that I think that presidential campaigns are lousy indicators of how well a candidate would do at running the entire federal government.
We'll explore the management styles and initiatives of McCain and Obama in the September and October issues, respectively, of Government Executive. But it's not easy to pin down what they plan to do, or even to find surrogates who can talk about the management challenges facing the government. Which could make for a very interesting next four to eight years.
One thing's for sure -- the era that started 16 years ago in which candidates gave management initiatives -- from the National Performance Review to the President's Management Agenda -- a prominent place in their campaigns and their administrations, is over.
Comments
We're screwed either way
OOOPSSSS | Monday, August 04, 2008 | 05:30 PMMichelle, We can all sit here and critisize for actions taken in the last 8 years (Bushs' term) but you have to understand what occured in those 8 years that led to those decisions. Other than FDR and Pearl Harbor, no other President has had to deal with what Bushs' administration has dealt with. And you really can not compar ethe two because Pearl Harbor was a military strike, as 9/11 was a terrorist attack, and i think responding/fighting against the two require totally different stragies. So maybe Bush should have just turned Afghanistan into a parking lot and that would be ok with you, since thats basically what we did to Japan.
Curious | Monday, August 04, 2008 | 01:55 PMIt seems like a long time since we have had the magnitude of concerns we have today. We alos have a lot of repair to accomplish in the arenas of foreign and domestic policy.
Of course real issues such as these would render rhetorical issues such as National Performance Review & the President's Management Agenda, moot.
US | Monday, August 04, 2008 | 11:31 AMMemo to Tom Schoop: -- Have staff acquire full inventory of the PBS series "The Delicate Balance" - hosted by Fred Friendly (former head of CBS News, former editor at Washington Post, deceased in early-mid 1990s). This series -- 20-30 years old? -- ran for 3 or 4 seasons - featured a 10 minute intro by Mr. Friendly – followed by 45 minutes wherein a guest master-of-ceremonies -- generally a Harvard Law Professor – posed a pummeled a series of hypothetical situations and pressed for solutions from a revolving panel of media, political, judicial, and academic bigwigs (e.g. William Raspberry - long time liberal columnist on Wash Post, 60 minutes star report Mike Wallace, various active and retired federal judges) involving some real brain twisting legal/policy/human interest dilemmas – example: an American news team is embedded with a squad of Nicaragua contras in ambush formation, down the trail comes a squad of “enemy” government troops, led by 4 US Green Berets, what does the American team do? Mike Wallace said “let fate take its course”, others took a different view. The great great aspect of this series was to show how difficult of solution are difficult policy problems (no not a tautology, but an uncomfortable aspect of life) – of which, with all due respect, too many columnists and their commenter, are not often forced to confront. Now, regarding “management issues” for the next President? Please, play for a moment the new President’s advisor on domestic policy – now what are the issues and actions and what their priority – i.e. the issues upon which the President will taken severe wounding from his base, the issues upon which he can best spend his very limited first term (really first 18 months) honeymoon points. Will you advise, Mr. Troop, that civil service reform, or more amorphously – “improved management” rise high in priority – a la Jimmy Carter, a la Clinton/Gore – or low/low like FDR, Wilson and Eisenhower? No, no, Mr. Troop, no escaping the issue by the “single and several” argument (i.e. the Prez can bake many pies simultaneously) – in the “Delicate Balance” game, the panel had to face, head-on just one issue per program. Of course, both parities play the “management” issue as a bi-partisan “efficiency” issue – and to a degree, I agree- but the politics of “management” are unavoidable, and happily so. You’ll agree Mr. Schoop I hope that politics is the inescapable element to decide, fight out or defer disbursement of the scarce resources of the commonweal – and that a wide-array of issues (performance mgmt, CSFS/FERS benefits, workforce levels, compensation) are inherently political – i.e. not solvable by logic, reason, or white papers from the IBM Mgmt Group. My continued beef with your commentaries and editing of GovExOnline – is your avoidance of just these difficult political dimensions to federal management. Now, go in peace, the mass (non-denominational) has ended.
Concerned Retiree | Friday, August 01, 2008 | 03:07 PMI can't believe anyone is actually asking this question after the last 8 years. How could either of them do worse?
Michelle | Friday, August 01, 2008 | 11:16 AMHow would they manage? Seems easy 1 would say PRESENT on any legislation crossing his desk + ask if this is change.
While the other would stand up for America
An undergraduate-level study abroad trip doesn't suffice when it comes to foreign policy, either. While Obama was campaigning as a global citizen, McCain was here focusing on the real issues. It's difficult to articulate (with or without a teleprompter) governmental challenges if you began dreaming of the presidency before you could even attempt to get anything done in the Senate.
Misanthrope | Friday, August 01, 2008 | 08:19 AMI'd like to know what criteria they think they will use to determine their political appointments and how far up on the list donations/favors/etc really is versus more serious qualifications, esp for those jobs considered second and third tier
BMP | Friday, August 01, 2008 | 08:03 AMABOUT THIS BLOG
Government Executive Editor Tom Shoop takes a look at news and events affecting the federal bureaucracy, from the perspective of a longtime observer of government.
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