Scoop: McCain and Obama Camps Coordinated on Building Staff Rosters for Next Government
A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note and Huffington Post that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead.
Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams.
This kind of out-of-sight coordination is rare between battling presidential camps and provides some indication that both Obama and McCain intended to draw expertise into their governments from both sides of the aisle -- or at least they wanted to appear interested in doing so if the information leaked out about the list development process.
Fascinating tidbit on cooperation behind battle lines.
-- Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note
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"The 2 camps were very far apart ideologically and they were personally hostile toward each other. "
What sucker for the puppet show you are. Bush, Pelosi, McCain and Obama were all strong supporters of the bailout while principled people of both the left and right opposed it. When it comes to what matters (money), there was no ideological difference. Obama will continue - indeed expand upon - the deficit spending and inflationary policies of W.
did either of them have HRC under the "foreign policy" heading? seriously doubtful.
cannot express enough disappointment at the selection of HRC as Sec. of State. she has so much quality domestic policy experience & so many ideas to work to get in place that both campaigns lifted from her domestic agenda liberally, and so the "change" candidate's idea is to have her as our leading diplomat? something here is rotten & the excuse that this is some concessionary gesture makes it all the worse.
my chief reason for voting Obama was I believed we would see an outstanding cabinet selected-- the best people filling the seat most fitting their expertise & on the highest cabinet position, this is what we get. more like Kennedy's cabinet. what a sucker i am. i feel like we've been sold a bill of goods & that expectations should be lower regarding other forthcoming decisions. same old song: backdoor political gladhanding, playing ball, almost worse than cronieism. why is it so incredibly difficult to get the brightest minds into a position where they are able to do the most good. a total shame...
Barack ran as a pragmatist. Read one of his books or go back to his speeches and it's clear he intended from day one to do exactly what this article says he did: work with both sides of the aisle. Build the best possible team.
Personally I applaud him for rising above the partisan mud fights and trying to get people working together. It was one of the many reasons why I voted for him.
The ideologues on both sides of the aisle are going to be unhappy with Obama and I'm OK with that. I trust his judgement to date.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. Obama=laughing all the way to the bank...
Only further illustrates that there is no division between the left and right, merely a front to control interests.
yep.
Sorry this is the link to the Scahill article http://www.alternet.org/story/107666/
Hi, I'm new to this website and just wanted to say I'm impressed with how many people understand the import of this story. I did not realize so many people understood that republicrats are the party of corporations. That makes me hopeful.
Here's great article by Jeremy Scahill about the people Obama is considering for his cabinet; most of them are Clintonite hawks.
People who think there's a difference between democrats and republicans, wake up. Clinton passed the telecom act allowing media consolidation, he repealed the law against large investment banks also getting into loans, he bombed iraq, kosovo, afghanistan, and sudan. Attacks on the poor and militaristic imperiliasm, and now Obama is picking the same people for his cabinet; where's the difference from Bush?
Just like in '06 the democrats win by pretending to be against the war, when they have no intention of ending it because their agenda is exactly the same as republicans'. Only one democratic presidential candidate voted against funding the war, and that was Kucinich. Wake up folks. Both sides of government and the Fortune 1000 are all part of one big organization that works together for the same goal: total domination of the planet by America's wealthy elite.
Working toward a better USA...
I think it was a process that should be repeated every election.
Let's get the best leaders we can and then move this country forward...
I smell change.
Then change your underwear, already.
Clearly the Democrats (Obama) and Republicans (McCain) are wearing many of the same.
The other problem with the story is there is no one in this group of insiders who isn't well-known already by both sides. Who needs a list? You need a stick to beat them off. Except for cabinet level, they have all been vetted before for govt. jobs, all send kids to the same private schools, live in Arlington or Georgetown, etc. This is some kind of theater.
This story, if true, does not mean that there was the intention to draw expertise into the government from both sides of the aisle. It means that there is only one party, the Corporate/Fascist Party. No matter who wins elections, the same people run the show. And the government is not of the people, or by the people, and certainly not for the people. It is of, by, and for the big financial interests.
People like you make me giggle.
Ignoring the giggling by small minds, you're correct. The sad part for our quasi-democracy is that until we move away from the two-corporate-party system, the machines that run them and our capitalism will be out of our reach or control.
The good part is that this time we elected someone to run the corporate machine who seems intent upon trying to help the masses just a tad bit more than before. We can have hope that a few decent things will get done, as long as business-as-usual capitalism rules our lives, even though it isn't good for the masses or for our democracy.
as a progressive. why am i feeling less and less enthusiastic about Obama???
this is one reason
Some people, regardless of their political stripes, will grab on to just about any scoop, rumor or outright lie to justify their lackluster of Mr. Obama. If not this so-called scoop, it would be something else.
They don't need to "GRAB."
They've seen the collusion over the past 8 years, when the Democrats appeased Bush on almost every issue, to understand that this is STATUS QUO behavior, not change.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/obama-mccain-transition-e_n_132976.html
According to Sam Stein, who wrote this very insightful article on October 8, the two men were world's apart in their approach to transition planning. Obama is a detail oriented, forward looking, well organized and strategic planner. McCain, on the other hand, all but put off any thoughts about the transition until after the election.
In this context and with a broader subtext of really poor personal incompatibility, I somehow, find this unconfirmed scoop suspicious. The 2 camps were very far apart ideologically and they were personally hostile toward each other. He (McCain) said said as much during their 1st or 2nd debate.
With this context in mind, I cannot fathom the 2 campaigns working together on such an important, far reaching and politically potent issue.
Maybe they both knew that the Bush administration and its minions were planning to take the country down in an economic crisis. McCain probably had a good whiff of that from some of his sources. Paulson got the money he wanted and the buddies of Cheney and Bush were set to get "rescues", i.e., bailouts, even then. And no one in Congress seemed the least bit interested. Let's be thankful that there was preparation for a "rescue" of our national government.
Or maybe there are no differences between them. Two presidential runners, one Administrative team. This indicates that policies have already been set in place no matter who won. Barak has McCain's team and McCain would have had Barak's team. Some of the personnel would have been different, of course.
Remember, these are the people who set policy in Washington, D.C. No matter who wins, the policy makers set the same rules. Again, where are the differences? Besides cosmetic and social issues of course. Finance rules the pulpit. You can set social and financial policies separately. So, Finance will have their bailout at your expense, no matter.
Some differences but Z-big tells me that they are few.
What a let down! Had I known this, I wouldn't have voted. ....no way, no how!
" Two presidential runners, one Administrative team."
..Reminiscent of the way the guy running Hillary's campaign and the guy running McCain's campaign were business partners
Given the current economy, Iraq, Afganistan and the like we have some fires burning that no mattter who won the election,you'd have to have your team ready immediately.
Any idea how long it takes to get security clearance? Maybe this is how you get to assemble major portions of a staff before THANKSGIVING!!
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