Four days before Election Day in a tightly contested campaign, there are literally thousands of people with some connection to Clinton World already jockeying for positions in a possible administration.
The competition for jobs under a new president is always tough, but this transition is expected to be brutal given the number of people in the vast orbit of Bill and Hillary Clinton who have been waiting for years to have a shot at a job in a future administration.
{mosads}The new president will hand out roughly 4,000 political appointments.
“Picture the Rose Bowl, with 90,000 people in the stands, and there are 4,000 seats on the field. And, go!” one longtime Clinton adviser said, describing what the job angling might look like.
Hillary Clinton is locked in a tight race with Republican nominee Donald Trump in the closing days of the campaign. Polls have tightened in the last week, and a Clinton victory is far from assured. But that hasn’t stopped hopefuls from getting set for what could be an intense post-election competition.
Applicants competing for positions fall into three main buckets: people who worked for former President Bill Clinton’s administration, people who worked in Hillaryland during her Senate and State Department tenure and both presidential campaigns, and everyone else the Clintons have dealt with through their foundation and the private sector.
There also are outsiders who’d like to be inside the infamous, well-protected Clinton bubble.
“It’s going to be a complete shit show,” one surrogate said. “Normally, you’d be up against your colleagues on the campaign and some outside candidates. If she wins, you’re up against pretty much anyone the Clintons have ever known who have had dreams of working in the White House.”
One former mid-level aide, who wouldn’t be the first person a Clinton applicant would approach for a job, said that even he has been fielding inquires from people with West Wing dreams.
“I already have people asking me, and I’m so far removed from the center of power and I couldn’t be less important, but I think the people asking me is indicative of the crowded field,” the former aide said.
Clinton’s transition team, with its five co-chairs, has been in place for months and will in the coming days be tasked with helping fill Cabinet-level positions and other aides coming to the White House.
The parlor game of predicting her closest aides is already being played.
Jake Sullivan, her trusted top policy adviser who has taken on a larger management role in the campaign, has been among the leading candidates to be Clinton’s chief of staff along with Ron Klain, a former chief of staff to Vice President Biden.
Brian Fallon, who has become a regular face on television for Clinton, is seen as the favorite to be Clinton’s press secretary. Marlon Marshall, who serves a senior aide on the campaign, would be among the top candidates for political director.
The Washington Post reported in August that Felicia Wong, the president and chief executive of the liberal Roosevelt Institute, has put together a list of “multiple hundreds” of people who will be recommended for administration positions.
“It’s going to make for some tricky politics,” said one former Clinton aide.
To further complicate matters, Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons added that there will be pressure “to think about positions creatively and not let the first name on the list be the last one to be considered.”
“It’s going to be a challenge for the vetting team,” he said. “They’re going to get a lot of names coming at them from every direction.”
The hiring process is similar to the situation many faced after President Obama tapped her for secretary of State. Clinton — who made it known that she wanted her people around her — took a handful of aides with her to Foggy Bottom.
Tommy Vietor, a former Obama spokesman who followed the Illinois senator to the White House after the 2008 presidential election, remembers the post-campaign anxiety well.
“It was frustrating,” Vietor said in an interview. “You finished this two-year campaign that is one of the most exciting and exhausting things you’ll ever be apart of, but you’re a human being. You can’t help but wonder what happens next.
“It’s hard to manage that uncertainty.”
The trove of stolen emails recently released by WikiLeaks gives some insight to how names are thrown into the job applicant mix on all levels.
In one email apparently sent to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, CNN founder Ted Turner recommended that John Berry, an Interior official in the Bill Clinton administration, be named Interior secretary.
“I sincerely believe John’s vision and that of the President-elect are complementary and Mr. Berry will serve as Interior Secretary with passion and distinction,” Turner wrote.
Sara Latham, who worked on the transition team under Podesta at the time, replied in an email that Berry was “in the mix.”
One former Hillary Clinton aide predicted that Clinton’s staff will look very much like the make-up of her campaign staff, with a mix of loyalists and other outsiders.
“She’ll have no shortage of the best and the brightest,” the former aide said.