OK, I’ve heard much banter this week over the entourage of 500 Obama is taking along to Europe. While I do think it staggering, and wonder how much this is costing the taxpayer, how does this compare with past Presidents.
To help put this in perspective, how many staff members did Bush-2, Clinton, Bush-1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon typically travel with?
Presidential trips are complicated–due to security, a need to bring advisors/continue to manage U.S. affairs, and so on. None/very little of that is stuff that can be provided on-site (for very sensible reasons). So a “full” party of 500 seems quite reasonable.
Just off the bat, W. seemed to travel with 700 people on his 2007 trip to sydney. So Obama’s crowd is even a little smaller.
One thing to realize is that a decent amount of that is redundancy–effectively, ‘spares,’ to ensure that anything the president needs his staff to provide will be 100% available at all times. This, as is clear after a moment’s thought, requires bringing two or three times as many people as are “needed”–a small cost compared to the possible consequence of the president being out of the loop/unable to act as necessary.
IIRC, the president travels with a second, fully equipped, air force one–so that if the first one is unserviceable for any reason, not a minute is lost. Similarly, if you think how many security people are needed at any time, you have to multiply it by (probably at least) 3–because he needs 24-hour protection.
These trips typically also include a contingent of business leaders, entertainers, other politicians, and others.
Even when the President is abroad he’s still in charge of the government; the VP doesn’t become Acting President. In other countries like the UK or Canada a cabinet member is appointed to act as PM until the PM returns.
So he can’t communicate with them in DC while he’s in Europe?
I understand the security demands, but according to reports that only accounts for about 200,
I’m not trying to pit him here. I’m just trying to get some comparison numbers of past administrations.
Googling “Bush travel entourage” brings up a widely circulated graphic/story (originally, I think, from a New Zealand newspaper describing G. W. Bush’s Australia trip) listing “250 secret service agents, 150 national security advisors, 200 other representatives from the executive branch, 50 aids, 15 dog sniffer teams, and 5 cooks”.
It is reported that “1,302 federal officials accompanied Clinton to Africa in 1998”.
Oh, and I found a history of Air Force One (Von Hardesty) that said Nixon took about 300 people to China in 1972.
All those people aren’t necessarily there for the president, either. It’s common for other leaders to meet at the same time as the heads of state. If, say, the Secretary of State goes w/ the POTUS, she’s going to need her own entourage too.
Obama doesn’t have an “entourage”. He has a “posse”.