Bill Salisbury

Jun. 16, 2008 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) -- The running mates John McCain and Barack Obama pick won't win them many votes, but their choices will be important and revealing, public service expert Paul Light predicted.

A good vice presidential choice can get voters to take a closer look at a presidential candidate, Light said, while a bad choice can raise questions about the candidate's judgment.

Light, a New York University professor, Macalester College graduate and author of 21 books on government, said Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is an "alluring match" for McCain. He's relatively young, has executive management experience, appeals to evangelicals and conservatives and has a "positive, powerful relationship with McCain."

But Pawlenty wouldn't "deliver much electorally," he said. The governor might help McCain carry Minnesota -- although there's no guarantee -- and he might help the Republican ticket in Wisconsin, he said. But that's about it.

"The conventional wisdom is, the running mate only accounts for 1 or maybe 2 percent of the vote," he said.

Light was in Minnesota to promote his new book, "A Government Ill Executed," which warns of the federal government's impending collapse, and to visit his father in Brainerd.

He said a presidential candidate's VP choice reveals much about his ability to govern.

"Walter Mondale used the choice (of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984) to get the voters to take a second look at his campaign," Light said. "He was struggling, was well behind Ronald

Reagan, and his choice of Ferraro really shook up the race. There was a lot of buzz about how bold he was. He came out of that choice and the convention that followed shortly after with a lead over Reagan."

Obama's choice is easier than McCain's, he said. The Democratic candidate needs a Washington outsider who has "good economic bona fides, foreign policy experience and might make a swing state more competitive."

"McCain has to make a Rubik's cube calculation," he continued. "Like Frankenstein, he needs to stitch together a lot of different assets into one person."

That choice must bring youthful vigor to the ticket, appeal to evangelicals and conservatives, connect with the economic concerns of working people and put an important swing state in play, he said.

Light said Mondale started to make the vice presidency the powerful office it is today.

No matter who the next vice president is, however, he thinks he or she should take charge of reforming the federal bureaucracy.

"Government is so badly broken right now that you need a vice presidential level of focus on fixing it," Light said.

The government's big breakdowns are obvious, he said, including the Columbia space shuttle disaster, slow response to Hurricane Katrina, the failure to respond to former FBI agent Colleen Rowley's warnings about terrorists before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge. Other failures he mentioned ranged from lax aircraft and food inspections to the importation of counterfeit prescription drugs.

Much of Light's research for his book was on frontline federal employees in Minnesota, including Veterans Administration nurses, air traffic controllers, immigration inspectors, park rangers and revenue agents.

"They don't have enough resources to faithfully execute the laws," he said, "And they are managed by too many political appointees creating mischief in the bureaucracy."

But with 600,000 baby boomers set to retire from federal jobs in the next 10 years, he said, the next president will have an opportunity to revamp the government without causing too much pain.

Light would start by eliminating half of the 3,000 political appointees who make up the middle layers of agencies. "They get in the way of sending information to the top and resources to the bottom, because these politicos have to handle and spin everything," he said.

Then, he would hire more frontline staff so the government delivers on its promises to provide food safety, border security and other essential services.

The federal government will have trouble recruiting young people to replace retirees, because they see it as dead-end work, he said. "I would remake the federal hierarchy so young people can find meaningful jobs, see the impact of their work and get the resources they need to do the job well.

"You don't want to recruit people who are interested only in a secure paycheck. You want people motivated by the desire to make a difference," he said.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0190-26020628