Clemons: McCain & Obama Coordinated on Personnel

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Steve Clemons Reports McCain & Obama Camps Coordinated on Building Staff Rosters for Next Government:

“…A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note 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…”

At this point, the story is as Clemons termed it, “A Scoop”, so there hasn’t been verification of this by other sources at this time.

(There’s more):

“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…”

Clemons speculates that such coordination between the Obama and McCain camps are an:

“…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…”

Given the way that Obama and McCain interacted during the campaign, especially in the last few months, it’s hard to think that the two camps would have been able to cooperate enough to work together on staffing choices for the next government.  It’s harder to believe that if they had done so, no one would have leaked it sooner.  Still, in the comments following his story, when he’s asked if he’s sure that he isn’t confusing the fact that both camps were asked by the FBI to submit names to be vetted before the election, Clemons responds:

“…yes, I am sure — but I don’t know all of the

details. I haven’t seen the list. I have confirmed this on the

Republican side as well. This was a collaborative act. I don’t know

“how” collaborative – -but I know that there was a sense in both

campaigns that a pool of solid policy experts — regardless of party

affiliation — was in the national interest…”

It will be interesting to see if others in the media have heard the same reports.  If the report is verified by other sources, it would be even more interesting to find out on which names both camps agreed.