What are the financial and political resources that Ridge needs in order to be successful?
A. I think the main thing he needs is the President’s and the Vice President’s support, and he’s got that. He needs their time so they can weigh in on some of the contentious issues that are going to come and loom ahead. And, again, he will receive that, I have no doubt. Secondly, he needs at least several billion dollars a year–not just in a one-time boost for next year’s budget, but he needs to be able to spend time over the next 12 to 24 months devising a broader agenda and then get the money for that as necessary. I think that will also be no great problem. And so I think that for him… those bureaucratic and political challenges will largely be solved. I think for him, the big question is the intellectual one in figuring out what the agenda should be, and making sure he doesn’t overlook vulnerabilities that come back to haunt us. I think that’s the hard one, much more than the politics. Q. Is this position analogous to the drug czar position? A. Well, it’s analogous in one sense
