PEOPLE EQUAL POLICY

[Also published in http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/personnel-is-policy/article/2582115 ]

Americans across the political spectrum are clamoring for real change in Washington.  It is going to take real leadership – vision, strength, and a deep skepticism of the Washington elite – to turn rhetoric into reality.

How will the next President actually change the Federal Government?  The answer lies in who they know.

An incoming President finds they have a wonderful view from the “pilot house” of the “ship of state”.  They quickly realize there are no control connections to the ship and the engine room is still under the control of those loyal to the previous Administration.

The process of establishing control over the “ship of state” makes or breaks a Presidency.  It also determines the potential for actually changing the system versus simply managing the status quo.

A new President gets to hire 8,045 new people.  These positions are listed in the “Plum Book” published in November after each Presidential Election.  These positions are the Cabinet and Agency heads, their teams, White House staff, Ambassadors, and term appointments for federal regulatory boards.  An array of part time advisory board slots round out the “plums”.

In 1980, I served as Director of Personnel for the Reagan-Bush Campaign.  This led to helping plan, and administer, the Presidential Transition, ultimately heading clearances for Presidential Personnel in the Reagan White House.  This was a unique opportunity to participate in every phase of how a campaign becomes an Administration.

Reagan was the first to lead the modern conservative movement into power.  It was not an easy process.  Remnants of the defeated campaigns became part of the Reagan-Bush team for the general election.  This meant Reagan loyalists had to work with Bush, Connolly, and Dole staffers.  Jockeying for power occurred from day one.  While the original Reagan team prevailed, Ford and Rockefeller alumni (turned Bush loyalists), positioned themselves for the Administration to come.

After the Reagan landslide came an epic behind the scenes battle for the soul of the Reagan Administration.  Bush loyalists, led by James Baker, allied with the Presidential Personnel team headed by Penn James. James had run Nixon’s transition and was assailed by conservatives in 1969 for his shutting out ideological loyalists in favor of technocrats.  This battle was renewed as James and his team, which included Democrats and nonpolitical corporate head hunters, declared that experience trumped ideology.  Hundreds of Ford alumni poured into the transition and dominated appointment short lists.  Reagan loyalists derisively labeled them “retreads”.

It took the entry of Reagan’s Kitchen Cabinet, allied with Reagan’s Regional Political Directors and Washington-based conservatives to turn the tide.  In early December 1980, conservative icon Stan Evans convened the coalition under the code name “Inchon”.  Inchon was aptly named as staffing the Reagan era was truly a game changing invasion behind enemy lines.  The combined knowledge and access of the thirty core Inchon members toppled James’ team and opened the door for real Reaganites to staff the Reagan Administration.

Who among the Republican Presidential contenders have similar stalwarts?  In 2012, I participated in the early transition planning for Romney.  His team was awash in Bush alumni.  Washington “retreads” have the connections, and the credentials, to insinuate themselves into a new power circle.  They have the presence to intimidate and dazzle weary campaign staffers with a cacophony of “if you knew what we knew” to dilute ideological zeal with a status quo mindset. 

Those who truly want Washington to change must look beyond the rhetoric to the Rolodex.  Political personnel decisions are defined by BOGSAT – Bunch of Guys Sitting Around a Table. Which Republican candidate will block retreads?  Which Republican candidate will refuse calls from Congress to find jobs for defeated candidates?  Which Republican candidate will ignore calls from the Republican National Committee to reward donors and lobbyists?  Which Republican candidate will place their change agenda ahead of demographic tokens who generate superficial accolades among mainstream media?  Which Republican candidate will avoid “false affinities” (ties to home state, college alumni, clubs) to make sure their team is up to the task?

Another challenge for the new President is expanding power beyond their 8,045 appointments.  How do you drive your agenda into each Department, agency, and program?

Except for the White House and agency support staffers (hired under “Schedule C” authority), the Plum Book positions directly supervise career federal employees.  This means the President’s team can hire, fire, transfer, promote, reward, and punish approximately 50,000+ within the career service.  The Reagan Transition developed initial lists of these careerists known as “Super Plum”.

Which Presidential contender has people who understand how to wield this power and direct real change?  The Reagan transition included a team whose sole mission was to identify the critical power paths within each Department and major Agency.  What twelve positions actually ran the Department of Commerce?  This team identified them and made recommendations for who would be the first wave of occupation. 

Another team ran the “welcome wagon”.  This team met with every Secretary-Designate, Agency Head-Designate, and their inner circles, to walk them through “Super Plum”.  They helped develop strategies for establishing full control of their organization and prioritized what Carter regulations and initiatives could immediately be stopped and reversed. 

The Reagan Revolution happened by design not by chance.  It happened because legions of loyalists came to Washington to make a difference.  Who among the current Republican Presidential field can deliver real results beyond Election Day?

[Scot Faulkner was Director of Personnel for Reagan-Bush 1980, served in the Office of the President-Elect, and on the White House Staff.  Later, he served as the first Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.]

MENTOR FOR THE AGES

Also published in http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158779, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/mentor-ages-scot-faulkner?trk=prof-post,  and http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/r.i.p.-stan-evans-mentor-for-the-ages/article/2561371#.VQFrcu6oVos.facebook

 

A successful movement needs three things: a cogent core of beliefs; the capability to affect tangible and sustainable change; and a mechanism for recruiting, motivating, preparing, and promoting its adherents.

M. Stanton Evans, who helped create all these conditions for America’s conservative movement, died on March 3, 2015 at age 80, after a long battle with Pancreatic Cancer. America has lost one of its greatest citizens and a true original.

Stan was at the epicenter of the Post World War II conservative movement. He graduated with honors from Yale in 1955 and became close friends with another conservative alumnus – William F. Buckley.

Buckley established National Review and a hub of conservative thinkers in New York City. Stan moved to Washington, DC and became Managing Editor for Human Events.

The modern conservative movement was blessed with the greatest thinkers of the post-war era, including Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, Harry Jaffa, Russell Kirk, Frank S. Meyer, Ludwig von Mises, and Richard Weaver.  Evans and Buckley compellingly applied their works to current issues, and added epiphanies of their own.

In 1960, at age 26, Evans crafted the Sharon Statement; the most enduring manifesto of the conservative movement. It became the credo of Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), countering the emerging radical leftists on college campuses.

In Washington, Stan connected with other conservative political leaders, such as Barry Goldwater, H.R. Gross, and Walter Judd, and journalists like Rowland Evans, Robert Novak, Henry Regnery, Allan Ryskind, and Tom Winter.  He was one of the driving forces behind the presidential campaigns of Goldwater 1964 and Reagan 1968 & 1976.

From these experiences, Evans established the organizational foundations that would propel the modern conservative movement to its zenith during Reagan’s 1980 campaign, and his first term. 

In 1977, Evans founded the National Journalism Center (NJC), dedicated to preparing young people to be journalists.  He created the Monday Club, a free-wheeling networking luncheon for conservatives on Capitol Hill at the Hawk & Dove.  He founded the Joseph Story Society, the forerunner to the Federalist Society for conservative lawyers. From his NJC offices above the Hawk & Dove, Stan, accompanied by his loyal three-legged dog, Zip, crafted his most audacious and successful enterprise.

On September 24, 1979, Stan hosted a dinner for top conservative House staffers.  Josh Bill, Tom Boney, Pete Braithwaite, Rick Centner, Louis Gasper, Laura Genero, Carol Glunt, Karen Hoppe, Bob Moffit, Don Thorson, his chief aide Fred Mann, and I enjoyed an Italian feast at Toscanini’s and heard Stan’s vision of fomenting full scale guerilla warfare against President Jimmy Carter and the liberals in Congress.  This was the charter meeting of the “Chesapeake Society”.  Part study circle, part war room, it became the most successful opposition network in Republican Congressional history.  Eventually, Chesapeake comprised seventy-five Member offices plus committee and leadership staffs. It was a parliamentary wrecking crew, disemboweling liberal legislation, stopping some bills, and delaying many others.  The goal was to make sure as little of the Carter Administration was intact when Ronald Reagan arrived.  The plan was – the less liberal programs in place, the less effort would be needed to reverse or eliminate them.

On December 8, 1980, after Reagan’s landslide victory, Stan convened conservatives, involved in the Presidential Transition.  “Inchon” became the primary forum for sharing operational intelligence and maximizing the success of the Reagan Revolution. Its credo was “people equal policy” and focused on preventing “Evans Law” from manifesting itself in the Reagan era.  His famous law was, “When ‘our people’ get to the point where they can do us some good, they stop being ‘our people.’”  Co-chaired by Stan, members of Reagan’s Kitchen Cabinet, and myself, Inchon launched a generation of solid conservatives “behind enemy lines” in the executive branch (thus the Inchon reference).   Many of Inchon’s leaders went onto populate the Gingrich Revolution in Congress.

One other part of assailing the liberal pillars of Washington was to make sure conservatives had fun.  That is why Stan helped form the Coolidge Society, Conservative Club, and Conservative Cabaret.  These became models for today’s diverse array of conservative networking, social, and charitable enterprises, which help newcomers to the Nation’s Capital learn, and thrive, among the like-minded.  

One of Stan’s historic accomplishment towers above all the rest. Those who knew him are recalling his ceaseless devotion to mentoring young people.  His door was always open.  There was always an extra chair at any table where he ate and drank.  He always answered his phone.  He always had time to listen & reflect, provide advice & support, and take action to help.  He was a mentor to us all.

The formal obituaries declared that Stan Evans had no immediate survivors.  They are wrong.  Thousands of conservative activists owe their lives and livelihoods to Stan Evans.  We are all Stan’s descendants.

[Scot Faulkner was Stan’s friend since 1978.  He served as Reagan’s Director of Personnel, on the Reagan White House Staff, and as Chief Administrative Officer of the U.S. House of Representatives.]