Is your political boss spending more time alone these days?  Or huddling with trusted advisors.  Is he or she updating resumes, calling all sorts of people or revisiting LinkedIn? If so, it is only natural. But especially at this point in the political calendar.

As the Obama administration winds down, and the political conventions come and go,  thousands of current federal political appointees are reminded that their expiration dates are fast approaching.

For some, moving day is January.  If not before.  Most of them are based in the Washington area but there are hundreds in federal offices in almost every state.

Regardless of who wins the November election most current political appointees are heading up the creek— sans paddles.

Republicans will clean house if Donald Trump is elected. Most of the thousands of political appointees of the Obama administration are also facing unemployment because as  President Hillary Clinton will want her own team  too.  And chances are most current members of the blue team will not make the cut.  The Obama people used the same broom to push out Bush appointees.  It goes with the turf.

According to many media experts,  Democrats in the Washington metro area in particular are generally thrilled and relieved that Virginia Sen. Timothy Kaine now No. 2 spot on the ticket.  The thinking is his nomination almost guarantees that Virginia, a purple state, will vote blue (as in Democratic) this November.  Virginia is one of those key swing states both sides.  The VP selectors clearly decided that a white male candidate from a key state was more important than an African American (like Sen. Corey Booker of New Jersey) or someone that would fire up Hispanic voters.

Regardless of who wins in November government-as-an-employer is probably over for most current political appointees.  Unless they managed to burrow into the civil service which is getting harder to do.

But the saddest of the sad have got to be political appointees at places like the Departments of  Housing and Urban Development and Interior.  Looking into the political crystal ball  is a double-whammy for them.   Until last week,  the high-level politicals at HUD and Interior believed they had a shot at 4 more (at least) good years in governments.   According to political pundits, HUD Secretary  Julian Castro and Labor Secretary Thomas  Perez were at the top of most ‘experts’ lists, to help with the Hispanic vote.  Instead they have gone from the A-list (with possible White House or higher cabinet level jobs) to the S-list.  S, of course, standing for ‘sorry!’

People who worked for everyone on the A-list for Vice President  felt, many correctly, that if their boss got the number two job and the party won they would be in a good position for a job at the White House (working for the Veep) or almost certainly higher-up in some federal agency.   With Kaine’s nomination, it means that the feds with the highest hopes (if they want to keep working, eating and operating in Washington) are now those staffers working for Kaine on Capitol Hill.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Jory Heckman

The weight of an ATM machine is typically 150 – 250 pounds or more (depending on the model).

Source: ATM Depot

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