The political war rooms are humming, TV ads are in production and the candidates are on the campaign trail racing from rally to rally, absorbed with getting a leg up in the polls. Knowing whom a President Gore or a President Bush would hire to help run the federal government ought to be high up in the minds of voters in November. After all, in addition to the president himself, the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet members, White House advisers, thousands of presidential appointees, Schedule C employees, and personal and confidential assistants scattered throughout the federal establishment will directly shape administration priorities and influence the national policy for the next four years. However, with the exceptions of Gen. Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who have been prominently mentioned as Bush's secretary of State and national security adviser respectively, voters are clueless as to who would be on George W. Bush's A-team next year. The same goes for Al Gore.
Voters deserve to know who is to be entrusted with the machinery of government.
And they should know before Election Day, not after the votes are counted, while the champagne is flowing and when names start cropping up in the news. By then, it's too late to do anything about it. There are good reasons for demanding that both candidates come clean sooner rather than later. George W. Bush now has a chance to go one step further by revealing to America what his administration would look like. The Republican standard-bearer can spend the rest of the campaign hugging black children, addressing Latino rallies in fluent Spanish and pledging help to Native Americans.