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Rahm Emanuel sez:
He stressed that the new administration would "throw long and deep," taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. "The American people in two successive elections have voted for change, and change cannot be allowed to die on the doorsteps of Washington," Mr. Emanuel said.Of course, the key is not what they want to achieve, but what they can achieve. The clear theme of Obama's transition team, White House staff decisions, and leaked cabinet appointments has been experience. Rahm Emanuel. Tom Daschle. Eric Holder. John Podesta. Hillary Clinton. Jim Messina. Pete Rouse. Phil Chiliro. And on, and on, and on. There's not much "change" here. Rather, the emphasis is on folks who know how Washington works, with the clear operating theory being that they'll know how to get things done. That's a different conception of "change" then presidents who come in and bring a lot of new people, which is what Clinton did (though, to be sure, Clinton didn't have a successful recent administration he could draw on for talent). But it's very similar to what Obama did in the primary.And give him his due: It worked. David Plouffe was a former Gephardt staffer. So was Bill Burton. Axelrod did some DCCC work in 2006 and served as national spokesman for John Edwards in 2004. After watching Gephardt and Edwards' 2004 runs, did anyone expect that their former staffers could execute something like Obama's campaign? Seemed unlikely. But the idea was that they had incredible technical competence that just needed to be matched by moment, candidate, and money. And that turned out to be correct.The transition argument seems to be something similar: The longtime Democratic operatives and wonks are really quite good. Paired with this president, and this moment, and this congressional majority, they can go much further than they did under the Clinton administration. It's hard to say whether that'll prove right or wrong. But deciding to shorten the executive learning curve as much as possible and appoint folks with the experience to harness a transient opportunity isn't an implausible strategic decision. The staff will carry out the president's agenda. What's being sought out, then, is not brilliant new ideas for what that agenda should look like, but indisputable technical competence. If the e-mails I'm getting from Obama supporters are representative, however, it's nevertheless not the approach most of them expected.
