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The candidates’ calls to serve

On Thursday night, the presidential candidates explained how they wanted to increase federal service -- and the Partnership for Public Service was there to watc...

Federal News Network Staff

September 12, 2008 2:19 pm

3 min read

By Dorothy Ramienski
Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio

A wave of retirements is going to leave a lot of job space open in the federal government, but many officials are struggling when it comes to how exactly they’re going to go about the task.

Now, both presidential candidates have weighed in.

Senators Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Az.) pledged to inspire a new commitment to public service, as they set aside the rancor of an intense presidential campaign during a two-hour forum on the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Senator McCain alluded to a partnership between the federal government and the private sector, while Senator Obama said that the federal government needs to attract more young people, specifically citing agencies like FEMA, USAID and the foreign service.

On Friday’s Daily Debrief, hosts Christopher Dorobek and Amy Morris spoke with Tim McManus of the Partnership for Public Service, who says getting young people interested in government is not a partisan issue.

Service is really important across the board, and I think, really last night for the first time in recent recollection, they did talk about all forms of service. They looked at service as volunteer service and national service. They looked at it as military service and thank goodness they also brought into the equation the need for young people in particular to look at federal government service.

McManus says both candidates also addressed the issue of how they were going to lead the federal workforce themselves.

Each of them also said that, you know, certainly government as it relates to the challenges that the country is facing that government in and of itself can’t do everything. That it’s also a real partnership between public, private and government in order to get things done and I think that is a little bit of a glimpse into some of their management styles. A recognition by both candidates that, as Americans, we all have very similar issues that we’re facing and collectively we need to come together and make those happen.

McManus says he was pleased that both candidates addressed the issues that make up the Partnership’s mission statement.

They were singing out of our handbook to a large extent. . . . Senator Obama actually said that we need to make government service ‘cool’. What he didn’t do is give a lot of detail about he or his administration, if he’s elected, is planning to do that, but . . . I think that’s certainly something [we’ve] talked about on several occasions. Young people don’t look at government service as cool; they don’t look at it as the thing to do [and] he made it a very big point to say, “We need to make government service cool again”.

McManus notes that McCain didn’t really explain his plan to increase interest in service, either.

While they offered at least some greater glimpse into how they expected to increase the size of the military forces, for instance, or get more young people . . . into a volunteer capacity . . . within non-profit organizations, they really didn’t bring up details about how they’d make that happen.

McManus says, overall, he and the Partnership are pleased that the subject of federal service is being discussed among the many other issues during this election season.

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On the Web:

Partnership for Public Service – Home page