I was recently watching the gubernatorial debates, and it reminded me that we are in the midst of a new political season, and this brings about some uncharted election activity. Given all the cloak-and-dagger Hitchcockian drama of 2024, none of us can gaze into that once-reliable crystal ball and predict which candidate will prevail.
Electoral life after the death of the organizational line leaves many unanswered questions. Does the organization still have the party discipline and might to corral and produce the winning vote? Does money matter? Does the strength of the far right or far left outweigh the middle of each party? Does experience matter? Does the one with the loudest voice prevail? Do surrogates transfer popularity? The reality is we do not know the answers to these questions, but this election will offer some clues for future elections.
This election process, after an earth-shifting decision from a federal judge, remains very uncertain. But what is certain is that this year, the state will vote for a new Governor and, with it, the advent of map-making. This doesn’t make sense now, but hopefully, at the end of this column, it will be clearer.
Whenever you take over a transition of any sort, you have a change, new ideas, fresh perspective, and some remnants of the old guard trying desperately to hang on for dear life. This holds true in life, in the corporate world, and its even more true in political elections.
Time to meet your friendly neighborhood cartographer. A cartographer is someone who draws maps and provides scale — a micro and macro view of the world. You may be asking, what does cartography and map-making have to do with elections?
This year, a new Governor will be elected, and with that comes a fast and furious transition. For those of us who have actually engineered a winning election and with it, run a full-scale transition, we can attest just how useful these transitions are.
First, it is hard for any outsider candidate running for any significant office to quickly appreciate the inner workings and minutia of the public entity that they are about to takeover. Imagine the magnitude of winning an election for Governor and knowing that you will be sworn in within 77 days and suddenly realizing that you are up against it all. The clock is ticking, and the world is watching your every move and listening to your every word. The absolute scale of statewide office is staggering, and at that precise moment you are either really naive and don’t appreciate the complexity or degree of difficulty and scope and scale of the state government, or you do and you are more than slightly frightened by the enormity. Either way, you recognize you need help, like now.
The first order of business is to assemble a crack transition team to start the messaging of the new regime and start to reshape the system.
The transition team is a perfect place to reward supporters and believers by placing them in important-sounding positions that will soon be monetized and politicized to the benefit of the volunteers.
The usual playbook of transition is to name a trusted individual who has unquestioned loyalty, huge street credibility, and terrific political stature to run the transition, along with some co-chairs that check boxes and return favors and do so in a world that is politically correct.
Next, we find hundreds of volunteers and divide them into department groups, and allow those committees to review current operations and make recommendations. Think DOGE light.
While I will tell you these grand traditions serve several purposes, utility isn’t one of them. The best part of a transition is when the soon-to-be-releveled map makers are either born or discovered.
Finally, time for cartography.
Let’s break it down. When the gun is sounded at the start of the transition, several dynamics are at play. Those who are lodged within the administration try and find some safe perch or passage to survive the next administration. Some ambitious and creative individuals who work in the current administration will find a way to hatch a plan to provide ‘invaluable’ insight to the machinations of a certain department or operation and find a way to get that plan or map to the incoming administration.
A few things are at work here. The sometime frustrated lifer or staffer in that government department sees an opportunity to engage and get some attention. The staffer, sometimes akin to the jailhouse snitch, pulls together a document that shows obvious evidence of current bureaucratic stupidity and pivots to offer a more realistic and comprehensive plan for the new administration to consider. Obviously, the author of the manifesto is somehow given preferential treatment and will expect to be rewarded for providing such self-serving information. Getting the picture yet?
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being part of the exciting change, but the map makers come to the party with some bias, agenda, and some lack of objectivity.
The clever map maker needs some access point and that can usually be found with a well-connected lobbyist or with individuals who raised money for the winner or a close staffer to a prominent legislator.
Let’s be honest, these transition ideas are sometimes thought-provoking and interesting, regardless of the motivation of the map maker. But it does come with some collateral damage. The problem is that we are dealing in a hyper-political environment, and these transitions usually come with a hit list that targets the outgoing government or enemies of the map maker who still want to remain in the next administration.
Let’s look at how this ends. If the map maker is successful and manages to penetrate the transition and score some points, look for that individual to leap over more senior staffers as they land a coveted and prestigious position in the agency or department that they just excoriated. It doesn’t sound fair, but it a proven reality. This isn’t like Dick Cheney heading up a committee for Vice President and finding that he is the only one most qualified. Come to think of it, it is exactly like that.
With our map makers, inevitably there will be some winners and losers. My only advice to those hard workers within the administration, continue to toil away and do your job and hopefully the enterprising map maker doesn’t put a target on your back.