Obama, McCain urged to find common ground on management agenda
Here’s your opportunity to suggest measures the two senators could support on a bipartisan basis.
At an event in Washington this week, Paul C. Light, a professor of public service at New York University and author of the new book A Government Ill Executed, floated an interesting suggestion: Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and John McCain, R-Ariz., he said, ought to team up on legislation to improve the management of the federal government in advance of this fall's election.
The two men have a unique opportunity to push a legislative agenda as presidential candidates. This is, after all, the first time two sitting U.S. senators have faced off against each other in a head-to-head contest for president. It would be very difficult for other members of Congress to oppose legislation backed by their party's standard-bearers.
There's precedent for McCain and Obama to work together. After all, they already have cooperated on legislation to create a database of federal spending information. Light had a couple of specific suggestions for new measures the candidates could promote that would presumably benefit either of them if elected: reducing the number of political appointees and streamlining the appointments process.
The question is, what other agenda items could the two candidates join forces to support?