THREAD: A lot of chatter on here about tonight’s #DesignatedSurvivor. As White House Cabinet Secretary from 2009-13, I helped select who sat out 7 Obama speeches (#SOTU, joint addresses, inaugurations). Here are some of the factors that went into the decision:
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First, the #DesignatedSurvivor has to be in the presidential line of succession. That means one of the 15 secretaries of an executive department. And the person has to be a natural-born citizen (not naturalized), so they’re actually eligible to serve as president.
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The second factor is if someone is already traveling outside the D.C. metro area during the speech. That only happened once for us, but even if the potential #DesignatedSurvivor is traveling, they need to be in a secure location during the actual speech.
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A third factor is the speech itself. If there's going to be an extended discussion of an issue, you want the relevant Cabinet member at the speech. Because healthcare was a prominent topic in Obama's speeches, we didn't use the HHS secretary as the #DesignatedSurvivor.
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Fourth factor: we tried really hard not to ask the same person to sit out twice. The #DesignatedSurvivor does get positive press coverage, but it's more fun to be at #SOTU. It's a great American tradition. Plus, the Cabinet often gets together beforehand for dinner.
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Lastly, given the importance of getting our legislative agenda passed in 2009-10, we avoided asking the former members of Congress who were in the Cabinet to sit out. We thought the schmoozing they did with their former colleagues on the floor was beneficial to our agenda.
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