Brad Henry's Transition Team

Governor-Elect Henry announced his transition team on Friday and everyone is scratching their heads to understand why there are so many academics on the lightweight, but bi-partisan team. Not that there's anything wrong with university professors and administrators but where are his cronies? There's a lot of term-limited State Senators fresh out of jobs and wanting to know where their cushy jobs are. The most likely scenario is that the real powers are behind the scene and the transition team will not be selecting a cabinet for the Governor-elect. None of the expected cabinet members are on the transition team. Senators Dave Herbert, Kelly Haney, Brooks Douglas, etc are not on the transition team. Dave Herbert and Kelly Haney would be good choices but lets hope Brad Henry does not load his agencies with friends and cronies from the State Senate. That would be an early kiss of death for his administration.

Another kiss of death to success is a Governor that surrounds himself with young neophytes in the Governor's office. It's cursed many a Governor and is hard to recover from. The Governor-elect would be wise to hire just a few pragmatic and experienced Oklahomans rather than a bevy of fresh recruits from the Young Democrats. Hopefully he won't make the mistake of hiring out-of-state political hacks for chief-of-staff (like Lt Gov Mary Fallin has). If the Lt Governor wants to ever become Governor she needs to stop hiring chiefs-of-staff who insult and irritate her allies and constituents.