Washington Monthly - September/October 2012 - (Page 25)

ten miles square ed by Timothy Kraft, who had worked for the New Mexico Democrats before Carter’s presidential campaign. After Carter, those with the best access to the Oval Office were even more likely to have careers independent of the president. Ronald Reagan, too, had men like Ed Meese, Michael Deaver, and Martin Anderson who had been with him in Sacramento. But they had to compete for influence in the Reagan White House with people like James Baker, David Stockman, and David Gergen, who had their own power bases in the GOP long before they hooked up with Reagan. Similarly, Bill Clinton brought a number of loyalists from Arkansas, such as Mack McLarty, Webb Hubbell, and Vince Foster, into his administration. But power in the Clinton White House quickly gravitated to aides like George Stephanopoulos and Leon Panetta, who were established Washington players before Clinton got to town. Fully thirteen of the fifteen top staffers in the early Clinton White House had broad ties to the Democratic Party before they went to work for Clinton, while only eight of the fifteen had been with Clinton during his first presidential campaign or earlier. The same pattern holds for the presidents who succeeded Clinton. Of the thirteen top White House aides to George W. Bush, only five had personal ties to the president prior to the 2000 campaign. Most of the rest— people like Political Director Ken Mehlman and Press Secretary Ari Fleisher—were longtime GOP professionals. Of Barack Obama’s fifteen top administration advisers, only four— David Axelrod, Peter Rouse, Valerie Jarrett, and Robert Gibbs—were involved with Obama before his first presidential campaign. And so it goes with Mitt Romney. Only a handful of his campaign advisers—Eric Fehrnstrom, Beth Myers, and Peter Flaherty are prominent examples—go back with him even as far as his days as Massachusetts governor. And among those who have been with him the longest, most have built their careers working for other Republican politicians or operatives. So, for example, Myers worked with Karl Rove in Texas long before Romney entered politics; Fehrnstrom was active in Massachusetts Republican politics long before he signed on with Romney; and top foreign policy adviser Dan Senor served in George W. Bush’s administration and has deep ties to Washington’s neoconservative think tank apparatus. Meanwhile, Romney also has many key advisers who have no previous connections to him. Senior adviser Ron Kaufman was George H. W. Bush’s White House political director. Yet another senior adviser, Bob Wickers, was with Mike Huckabee in 2008. What does that suggest about Romney, should he be elected? Of course, it’s too early to know who among his longtime associates and campaign advisers will win top jobs in a Romney administration, and we certainly don’t know how the power positions will shift over time. To the extent that we can tell, however, it seems likely that Romney’s executive office, including White House staff, would be just as tied in to his party’s network as that of any recent president. While a somewhat greater proportion may be personally connected to Romney than is the case with, say, Obama—whose personal network coming into office was not nearly as extensive as Romney’s is—there’s no reason to expect any real distance between him and the Republican Party network. We’re not seeing, in personnel, anything that even remotely hints at, for example, an attempted Bain takeover of the executive branch. The bottom line is that it is far more likely that a Mitt Romney presidency will be defined by the Republican Party than that he will define his party. Jonathan Bernstein is a political scientist who writes about American politics at a Plain Blog About Politics, the Washington Post, and the Washington Monthly. ExpEct thE ExcEptionAl And Explore What Matters to You 4Experience a semester in Budapest, Hungary, at our McDaniel Europe campus or in study abroad programs in dozens of other countries. 4Feed your passion in any of 100 campus clubs, from environmental action to stocks and finance to cheese connoisseurs. 4Test your career options at an internship or externship in Baltimore or Washington, D.C. 4 Team up with others through service-learning opportunities. Arabic Studies major IZABELLA BAER-BENCHOFF visited the ancient pyramids up close during her study abroad experience. WANT TO KNOW MORE? Call 800-638-5005 or visit www.mcdaniel.edu Washington Monthly 25 http://www.mcdaniel.edu http://www.mcdaniel.edu

Washington Monthly - September/October 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2012