Prepare to Govern

All right, ENOUGH already.  The candidate advocacy has long passed this Beltway native’s capacity for political spectatorship.  We have two acceptable candidates.  Neither one is perfect.  Neither one goes nearly as far as I would like, and both are beholden to some questionable influences.  Still, they’re both light-years beyond the best the Republicans can or will run, i.e., the "moderate", "maverick" John McCain, regardless of who he gets saddled with as running mate (which would matter if he were to be elected, due to his age – but he isn’t going to get elected).  As the vangard of progressive pressure, it’s time for us to move on and get working on the NEXT big problem.  Not how to get elected.  What we are going to DO once elected.  We have to prepare, not to campaign, but to rule.

After the November elections are held with the economy in a state of recession, unemployment at a ten-year high, and a continuing, expensive, and unwinnable seige continuing in Iraq, all courtesy of Republican rule, the torch will emphatically pass to Democratic hands.  We will suffer three months of a lame-duck Administration, which will probably pass an inordinate number of last-minute Presidential pardons for Bush cronies and other criminal connections.  Congress, with its bare Democratic majority, will be able to prepare for the long-term departure of  a solid number of Republican members, and their replacement with a bumper Class of 2008 Democrats.  Lame-duck Republicans might agree to pass a few bills they otherwise lacked the political courage to support; but Bush will hold the veto pen cramped in his dying grasp.  The nation will wait with baited breath, struggling to survive an impoverished holiday season in hopes of a January inauguration of new hope, new programs, and new governance.  And whoever wins, whatever combinations make their way to Washington under our banners, we need to be prepared to move in and move onward starting on Day 1.

It’s going to be an effin’ YEAR before we get to take charge of this thing.  And many of us remember the painfully lengthy process of installing the first Clinton Administration: the failed appointments, the drumbeat scandals about trifling office arrangements, the nominees sidelined by sordid personal details which should have been investigated and dealt with before they ever got the top nod.  By contrast, we remember the way the Bush administration moved in like a trained, well-oiled military unit, setting up shop and getting to work as soon as they had the keys in hand.  This is what we have to do in February.  We can’t afford to fumble and bumble our way into power yet again.  Whoever our winning lotto number is, he or she has to be READY to walk in that door, hang up his or her coat, and get busy.

That means not just having a program, a platform, or a raft of suggestions ready to be sent to Congress by February 1, 2009.  It means having the necessary people on file, pre-investigated, briefed, prepped, and primped for the cameras.  We need a Cabinet up and functional in as little time as humanly possible; that suggests that Congressional leaders, especially in the Senate, be asked to vet and pre-approve candidates well ahead of time as well.  Let’s not lose time pretending that the public is going to vote on these things.  We know who holds the gavel in the chamber where "fillibuster" can shoot down your first choice faster than Dick Cheney after a couple of beers.  It behooves our candidates to start considering their candidates NOW, to get their choices on paper six deep, and have preliminary investigations made into their skeleton closets rather than having those turn up embarassingly on CNN after a nomination has already been made.  That means that Obama has to be careful about old friends from Chicago, where politics and corruption go hand-in-hand, and that Clinton needs to avoid the kind of naivete that characterized the beginning of the first Clinton administration.  One hopes that, having run around Washington and New York for a couple of decades now, she has learned from experience.  One hopes that Obama, whose poker-game has been charitably described as "cautious", would pay similar attention to the details of selecting his governing team.  One certainly hopes.

We certainly don’t lack good material for either one of them to choose from.  For Attorney General, for instance, we could consider either Bobby Kennedy, Jr., or Elliot Spitzer.  John Edwards might be a popular and symbolic choice for Labor.  In Defense, we need someone with the support of the troops for what can only be a demoralizing drawdown in Iraq.  I suggest that Colin Powell might not be unreasonable, Republican or not.   We wouldn’t want him in a domestic economic area.  But in Defense, we know that he follows orders, and we need to get a military that has been running amok with "private contractors" under firm control without alienating the loyal soldiers who have been breaking and dying for Halliburton’s profits.  Powell, I have been told by former subordinates, is well-liked because he takes the effort to genuinely care.  Republican or not, we could use that.  And because he does care, he might be enticed to go back to work at what he does best.

I invite suggestions.  I invite discussion.  I invite y’all to start thinking, not about winning the next campaign, but just what we are going to DO once we have won – because we are GOING TO WIN – how we are going to do it, and who is going to middle-manage the game.