As everyone in the media and those that pay attention are anxiously awaiting the announcements of the two major party presidential candidates running mates, it occurs to the author that, given all the press generated by Senator Obama's perceived inexperience, it would be a prudent idea for the Illinois Senator to not only announce his choice for Vice President, but also his first choices for key member of his cabinet. Considering the top issues in this election a good starting point for this sort of early administration structuring could/should be Secretaries of State, Defense, Energy, Treasury and Attorney General. These offices cover all of Obama's "weakness;" those being foreign policy, national security, and his lack of a verifiable record in national office on the economy. Follow me below the fold.
As I state in the introduction, such a move would make it clear to the voters what an Obama administration would look like. The best way to counter attacks of inexperience is to surround oneself with experience. Of course, it is very important what kind of experience one trusts to advise them. While volumes could be written as to what criteria are important or indeed which individuals would best fit particular offices, the idea here is not to pick Obama's cabinet for him. That said, a good start for the Obama camp would be to create a balance within their choices; pick members of past administrations (the Clinton State Department comes to mind), people with years of experience in both the public and private sectors, and of course a strong military mind in the DoJ (one of the Generals that retired due to Bush's mismanagement of the Iraq War and subsequent occupation, perhaps). An ideologically and professionally balanced outline of the Obama Administration would do well to ease the minds of voters who still see his "inexperience" as a reason not to vote for him.
Now such an announcement ought not be done in haste. Indeed in politics, as with comedy, timing is everything. Push the agenda too soon and you risk not only political memory failing you at the polls, but also a member of the prospective cabinet not being properly vetted. An unforeseen scandal or past infidelity could cause serious damage to perceptions of judgement and wisdom required to lead a large, powerful nation in an increasingly complex and dangerous world. Such decisions as close advisers ought not be taken lightly, although if their past behavior is any indication, one need not worry about the Obama campaign's ability to make decisions. With all that in consideration a reasonable time to announce these potential appointments would be late September or, more favorably, into October; a number of weeks or a month after the latter of the two conventions when the political climate has calmed and the media and voters are focused more on the day-to-day of the campaign again. The effects of this would be, in the opinion of the writer, two fold. Firstly, it would generate far more press than the typical town hall meeting or latest ad and give surrogates and campaign spokespeople an opportunity and justification for touting not only the candidates judgement, but also his preparedness with regard to taking office (the downside is of course appear presumptuous, which will be discussed below). Also, such an announcement would force the hand of the McCain campaign.
With all the media abuzz with analysis of Obama's announcement, John McCain would be faced with a number of choices. First, he would have to decide whether to counter with his own prospects or simply to complain about Obama's arrogance and the amount of media coverage his opponent is garnering. By the time any announcement would be made, one would assume that the "media loves Obama" tact would have run its course, thus leaving McCain to pick his own cabinet, which backs him into another corner. Does he simply push out a list of politically friendly hacks and cronies or special interest, big-business mouthpieces the way Bush 43 has done, or does he take his time, vet and consider a series of serious, pragmatic, reasonable, (independent/moderate) voter-friendly choices that will help him with voters in the political center. If he chooses the former, he loses the election; if the latter, he is then locked into those choices should he get elected. If McCain (or Obama for that matter) make such an announcement and then goes back on his word when sending appointments to the Senate, his administration would be under fire from the media and the public from day one and would have an extremely difficult time convincing Americans of his sincerity, let alone getting anything done. In short, if Obama were to announce potential appointments to cabinet positions early, the result would be a win-win electoral situation. Except in the case where he may lose which, as promised, follows below.
One of the biggest issues of perception facing the Obama campaign is that of his presumptiveness. To too many people, the guy just seems cocky. The writer's feelings about such opinions aside (those people are idiots, by the way), announcing potential cabinet appointments would only fuel such sentiments. Clearly, the announcement itself, as well as discussion of said announcement, ought to be handled with kid gloves. The idea is not to come across as saying, "this will be the next Secretary of State," but rather, "should Barack Obama become the next President of the United States, these are his first choices for who he would like in his administration." The message should be as hypothetical as possible. But again, as stated earlier, if past behavior is any indication, one need not worry about message discipline on the part of the Obama campaign (Robert Gibbs is a genius).