Obama, McCain campaign representatives provide peek at possible futures.

WASHINGTON, DC--Big homeland security contractors will face a tough and demanding president if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is elected, a McCain supporter warned a gathering at the Aspen Institute on Oct. 15.

"If you're a big contractor, look out," said C. Stewart Verdery Jr., a lobbyist representing the McCain campaign. "You had better do a good job and have your ethics in place." A McCain administration would have "no hesitancy to call a spade a spade" when it came to government contracting.

Verdery made the remarks at a roundtable discussion titled "Homeland Security and the Transition to the Next Administration," hosted by the Aspen Institute and moderated by Clark Kent Ervin, former inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It was the first time campaign representatives had directly addressed the future of homeland security (HS) under the respective candidates.

Representing the Obama campaign was Rachana Bhowmik, the campaign's senior HS advisor and legislative director of Obama's Senate office.

Verdery said he anticipated a tough approach based on McCain's previous battles with defense contractors and his campaign against wasteful government spending.

Both representatives said they expected few organizational changes to DHS if either of their candidates won. Bhowmik said that the Quadriennial Homeland Security Review would be an important factor in evaluating the future of the department. While Obama has favored moving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the department,"it is less a question of where the boxes are than how the boxes are managed," she said in reference to the boxes in an organizational chart. Verdery said that while the campaign had not taken an official position on FEMA, the attitude was: "Let's not start rearranging the deck chairs."

Each representative said their candidate would emphasize different aspects of HS.

According to Bhowmik, Obama, based on his experience in Illinois, favors an all-hazards approach to HS. "The senator is very serious about homeland security," she said, pointing out that he had requested his assignment to the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Given the battering that Illinois had taken from storms, tornadoes and floods--"everything but locusts this year"--she stated that Obama was very familiar with DHS' and the federal government's role in emergency response.

Citing the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, she criticized what she said was an overly partisan response that weighed relief against political ideology.

Another emphasis in an Obama administration would be on improving morale in DHS and taking the partisanship and ideology out of the department. "What we've been through over the past five years has been driven by ideology. Homeland security is not a partisan issue. Key people have been kept out of the planning," she charged.

She also dismissed fears that Democrats have a "weak bench" in HS. "That assumes that the bench could only consist of Democrats," she said, noting that an Obama administration might also reach out to Republicans to staff DHS. As for the current administration, she noted: "When you have a team with a losing record,what kind of bench do you have there?" An Obama administration would seek a secretary with strong management skills, she predicted.

Verdery for his part acknowledged that "the world will be surprised if McCain wins. It will be an uphill battle."

Nonetheless, a McCain administration would emphasize the international aspects of HS and would work with international partners to spread US security outward, in Verdery's view. Given McCain's previous work on immigration legislation, a McCain administration would pay particular attention to the immigration issue and border security.

Verdery also said that Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) would be a candidate for homeland security secretary in a McCain administration. 

McCain would also try to keep government spending within limits, holding back congressional authorizing committees that launched wasteful projects. "I can see a big blow up between authorizers and a fiscally conservative president with the appropriators stuck in the middle," he predicted.