For the sake of argument, let us assume that the winner of the 2020 Presidential election is a Democrat. I, for one, do not think it’s a foregone conclusion, but let’s assume this anyway. Doesn’t matter who it is.
What does their Cabinet look like? Who do they tap to serve? What got me thinking about this was some discussion about Joe Biden’s potential Presidential run. I happen to like Biden, but it’s too late for him. I do wonder if he’d make a decent Secretary of State, and that got me thinking about other Cabinet officials (and other highly placed appointees)
The current administration has stripped away, or allowed to atrophy, a lot of institutional knowledge. It’s going to take years, possibly decades, to rebuild many departments (like State). Seems to me that the next President would be best served by bringing in a lot of old hands and prior office-holders; people who can hit the ground running and not have to learn as much about how their particular area of responsibility should work as a relative newcomer would. Hopefully, these old hands would bring on some younger deputies who they could mentor, so that there would be a growing cadre of younger people to take over down the road, but it seems to me that we’re going to need a lot of institutionalists in there first, just to start the re-building process.
I suppose there are a couple of positions that might benefit from some new blood. For all the drama, I suspect that the bones of the DOJ are in pretty good shape, so a younger, reform-minded Attorney General might work. Perhaps Energy and EPA would benefit from some young blood to steer them more quickly away from their current state. Otherwise, I feel like it’s going to take at least one term’s worth of grizzled veterans to stabilize some institutions before turning to the next generation.
What do you think?