Unfortunately, the growth in presidential appointees and an increasingly cumbersome clearance and nominations process means that, even with good intentions, the next president will need months to create a functioning government.
Transition expert Paul Light, a New York University professor, notes that John F. Kennedy took less than six months to install 200 top Senate-confirmed appointees. In 2001, President Bush took a year longer, in part because he had to fill 600 such jobs.
By all accounts, Mr. Bush ran such an efficient transition in 2000 that his administration got off to a fast start. By contrast, Bill Clinton wasted time with distractions from an economic conference to an untimely fight with the Pentagon over gays in the military.
Also William MacKenzie's "Campaigning Isn't Governing" what campaigns face once the election is over and the candidate faces governing.
The campaign trail seemed a universe away from SMU's John Tower Center last week, where Andy Card and Mack McLarty held forth for more than an hour about the realities of running a government. They know something about that. Mr. Card was George W. Bush's first White House chief of staff; Mr. McLarty held that post under Bill Clinton. Those grueling tenures showed them what it's like to manage a president's day, hire and manage Type-A staffers, keep an agenda rolling and deal with Capitol Hill. The longer they talked the other night, the more being president sounded as disconnected from what John McCain and Barack Obama are doing on the stump these days as pitcher-and-catcher camps are from the realities of a marathon baseball season.
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