A lot of former Clinton administration officials are involved with the Obama transition, and will presumably be involved in his administration. Is this important? Not as an analytical category, no. Of course there are going to be Clinton administration folks working with Obama. Basically, if you were a competent Democrat interested in working for the government between the years 1993 and 2001, you worked for the Clintons. Especially if you were a sub-cabinet person in the nineties, right about now you're probably at the right age and experience level to play an important role in the new administration. William Galston says he is pleased with Obama's decision to make use of former officials, as though Galston thought that Obama might have decided to ban them from government service due to some grudge. Sure, the president-elect criticized the Clinton administration during the primary, but that's what happens in a campaign; he never disavowed the successes of the Clinton years.
What, though, if you agree with some criticism of the previous Democratic administration? Rest assured that Obama and his team will still control the overall policy direction; the Clinton policy folks that have been with him since the beginning of his campaign have obviously bought into his approach and many of the mid-level staff that will now be bumped up to higher positions have learned from the mistakes (and successes) of the past.
I suppose we can look forward to the chorus of amazement if a Democrat is elected in, say, 2024, and starts to populate her staff with veterans of the Obama administration.
--Tim Fernholz
