OK yeah, you’re right. I was wrong. For the record I think Romney would be fine as a Cabinet Secretary, but I don’t feel great about appointing an abortion foe to HHS, particularly with the Supreme Court the way it is.
I like that Michael Flynn and Jared Kushner are listed as two of Trump’s cross-party appointments. Also, Peter Navarro’s frankly insane history (endorsed by Hillary Clinton?!) is fascinating, not in a good way.
Yeah, Trump’s appointments are nonsense, but I think he’s an abberation rather than the rule. In the past, Presidents of both parties had folks from the other side on their cabinets.
I think the key would be to find folks who are legitimately competent at their jobs and know stuff… The GOP bench is pretty weak in that regard.
I will be happy if we can just get a Democratic SecDef. The last Democrat to appoint a Democratic SecDef at the beginning of their term was Johnson in 1969.
EDIT: No actually Aspin was Clinton’s SecDef in 1993. So twice in 70 years. By contrast no Democrat has ever served as SecDef under a Republican administration.
They did a while ago - their plan, however, was just a bunch of bullet points without any specific strategy on how they’d get there.
Good point on the abortion thing. If he were in such a role, I’m not sure how much his personal views would come into play when he would be working for a Biden administration (that’s not rhetorical, I really don’t know)?
Romney has some organizational and leadership chops. He could certainly be effective but the ideological differences might be a concern, as you pointed out.
I wonder if the Romney idea is signaling that people willing to at least talk across the aisle are to be rewarded.
I think Romney pretty much has his hands full as a Senator.
If you’re gonna appoint someone from that wing to something, I think a better pick might be Jon Huntsman.
Or, like you keep suggesting, Susan Collins. I’d be willing to concede Defense if she leaves the Senate.
He might not want the job anymore, as of today it looks like he killed what political future he might have after he voted to impeach Trump.
Romney doesn’t exactly need the paycheck so I feel like some of his motivation to be in government is likely to be about actually doing something. I’m not sure how much of “doing something” is going to be taking place in McConnell’s senate.
I nominate Herman Cain as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
This explains so much: Meacham working on Biden’s speeches for him. Also helps eplain the Lincoln inaugural themes that Biden has surfaced since Friday night.
It’s paywalled. But is this the Meacham that frequently makes appearances on MSNBC?
EDIT: Not complaining about the paywall, just explaining why I can’t answer the question myself.
Yep. One of our greatest living historians.
If you were wondering about the Lincoln inaguration address callouts, this is them, I’m betting.
In his first inaugural, Lincoln implored the South “We are not enemies, but friends.” Biden on Friday: “We are competitors, but not enemies.”
Similarly, on Saturday Biden invoked the “Better angels of our nature” phrase that Lincoln used.
It’s sadly telling that words of comfort that Lincoln tried to use on the eve of Civil War were so appropriate to Joe Biden.
Meacham has his own podcasts, of course, but he was on Axelrod’s pod the Friday before the election, and it was so good. I listened to it four times.
I’m not really familiar with him aside from his appearances on MSNBC. But I’ve enjoyed listening to him every time he’s been on.
Check out his appearance on the Axe Files pod. So good. Great American.
If you used to read Newsweek during the 2000s like I did, you’re familiar with his work as the managing editor of Newsweek until they finally folded (and they’ve only been Newsweek in name-only since then). I really enjoyed the Magazine during the late Clinton years and during the W era under Meacham, which is why I started following his work.
Such as? Just because Romney hated Trump and voted to convict on one of the impeachment counts, it doesn’t make him likely to vote for anything Democrats might actually want to pass. I mean, he might join Sasse and Collins to furrow his brow occasionally when Mitch does something outrageous, but he isn’t going to help get anything done. Is there an actual policy or two where you think he would?