By Chuck Abbott
Democrat Ken Salazar and Republican Chris Christie devoted months to assembling a plan that only one of their bosses can use beginning November 9 – the checklist of policy announcements and personnel appointments to be made by the newly elected president. The transition teams chaired by Salazar, for Hillary Clinton, and Christie, for Donald Trump, set the tone for an incoming administration by fleshing out campaign planks and sifting for nominees to run the government. “There’s a huge corral of people we are looking at,” said Sam Clovis, Trump’s chief policy adviser, in September in a rare description of a transition team’s labors.
Agriculture saw little attention during the presidential campaign, so there are few clues of who Trump or Clinton want at USDA. Traditionally, presidents-elect settle first on nominees for the big cabinet posts, the state, treasury, judiciary, and defense departments. For the remainder, including USDA, a new president’s goals of diversity of gender and racial background in the cabinet can compete with ideology and the desire to thank key blocs. To find out the rest of this story click on the link below, or copy and paste into your search engine. It’s worth the read.
