Bringing about change

Obama plans for presidential staff, shapes policies

Now that the votes have been counted and the confetti has cleared, it’s time for President-elect Barack Obama to begin contemplating the people and policies that will shape his administration. Obama began to tackle the first items of business Wednesday in several hours of meetings, during which he reportedly made calls to possible cabinet members.

Although no formal announcement was made as of press time, several media outlets reported that Obama had selected Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., to be his chief of staff.

Emanuel is a former aide to President Bill Clinton and chairman of the Democratic caucus. His reported selection is the first in what is expected to be a slew of appointments of competent, experienced policymakers and thinkers to Obama’s cabinet, experts said.

“His emphasis is going to be on putting together the best possible administration and having those people he is selecting begin to work on the best possible plans,” said Steve Mitchell, chairman of East Lansing-based Mitchell Research and Communications Inc.

Obama announced in a written statement that former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, longtime adviser Valerie Jarrett and Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff, will co-chair his transition team.

Mitchell said the team’s cabinet selections will include some of the nation’s best economic planners and foreign affairs specialists to deal with the nation’s most pressing issues: The economic crisis and the wars in the Middle East.

“He’s being elected to lead, and that’s the primary thing that people want right now,” he said.

Mitchell said Obama’s cabinet likely will be “as diverse as the electorate who nominated him.”

After 21 months of campaign promises, it’s likely that Obama will have to rethink and revise some of the policies he outlined in the campaign, experts said.

They said the economic crisis will make it more difficult for Obama to remold tax and expenditure policies.

“President-elect Obama will have to pick and choose,” economics professor Charles Ballard said. “That is the essence of leadership: Having to make choices, some of which are difficult.”

But which policies Obama will choose to scale back, the ones that might be axed and those that will be kept as is are anyone’s guess, Ballard said.

“It’s not an all-or-nothing thing,” Ballard said. “There’s all, there’s nothing, but there’s a whole lot of things in between.”

Ballard said Obama could attempt to fulfill his policies gradually, rather than taking immediate action. He said Obama could face pressure from the strongly Democratic Congress to enact all of his policies, but he will need to assert his authority against those voices.

“One of his hallmarks has been his ability to remain calm in difficult situations,” Ballard said. “My guess is he will proceed in a methodical path and (changes) won’t be super dramatic, but rather step-by-step.”

After his campaign oath to be a beacon of change, Americans will look to Obama to make the change he has promised, but most of them realize that it will take time, Ballard said.

“If the economy were humming smoothly along, then the public would have a greater expectation that he would be able to move forward with new initiatives,” he said.

Nutritional sciences senior Jessica Scott said she realizes not every policy will be enacted right away.

“He’ll have to evaluate the issues that are more important first, and maybe take care of those and put the others on the back burner,” she said. “But hopefully he’ll be able to eventually get to everything he promised us.”

In addition to the economy, foreign policy will be one of Obama’s top challenges in the White House.

Experts said Obama’s election will immediately improve U.S. relations abroad, but his policies will decide whether that perception remains positive in the long run.

“(The world) demands not merely a general reassessment of (America’s) policy toward the Middle East, but also a reform of those policies, or after a while, disillusion will set in,” international relations professor Mohammed Ayoob said.

Citizens of foreign nations, particularly in the Middle East, have an extremely sour opinion of President Bush. Obama will have to prove his policies are different to avoid being subject to the same opinions, Ayoob said.

To do that, he must uphold his promise to withdraw from Iraq and focus on the growing conflict in Afghanistan.

“The issues (Iraq and Afghanistan) face are primarily political and not military,” Ayoob said. “Just throwing troops at those problems is not necessarily going to solve them.”

Ayoob said Obama will have to eventually withdraw troops from both countries.

“The American presence in both countries has become much more a part of the problem than of the solution,” he said.