The personnel office must be ready to go the day after the election, so advance planning is crucial, but often neglected in the pressure of the campaign. The onslaught of office seekers begins immediately, and the OPP must be ready to handle the volume with some political sophistication. The delay in establishing the personnel recruitment process is one of the reasons that the 2000-01 transition has been particularly challenging. Intense pressure for appointments from the presidential election campaign, Capitol Hill, interest groups, and the newly designated cabinet secretaries will buffet the process. Perhaps most important, the newly elected president's policy agenda will not be fully implemented until most of the administration's appointees are confirmed and in office.
Political patronage has a long and colorful history in the United States.
The purposes of patronage appointments are to reward people for working on the campaign and for the political party and also to ensure that the government is led by people who are committed to the political philosophy and policy agenda of the president. As long as these purposes are consistent with putting qualified people in charge of government programs, there is no problem. But from the perspective of the OPP, demands for patronage are frustrating. You have these Mack trucks bearing down on you at sixty miles an hour. Thus the OPP has to deal with external pressures for appointments, but it also faces internal battles with cabinet secretaries over subcabinet appointments.