Matthews: My Questions for Obama Will Focus on ‘Executive Performance’
GEIST: “Without giving away your questions for tonight, obviously you'll go heavy on ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, what's the one thing that –“
MATTHEWS: “Well, not necessarily. That's an assumption I wouldn't make. I want to get to the issues – “
GEIST: “But what's at the core of ObamaCare for you right now? What’s the one big question that you think he needs to answer about it?”
MATTHEWS: “Well, I think it's about the rollout. I think it's about what it says about executive command. And it's stuff that I talk about all the time on my program, which is you need to have a plan or a design for executive performance. How do the cabinet members respond to the president's demands, his program? How does he make sure that what he wants to get done gets done? What’s his method? Presidents have different methods. It’s hard to see sometimes what his method is. Is it a strong chief of staff system? Doesn’t look like one. Is it spokes to the wheel where he has personal contact with people like Sebelius, where he's talking to them every day and making sure things get done? Hard to see that. You do have a lot of floaters in the White House floating around that have his ear, that can speak for him. But it's not a clear system of accountability, executive accountability. And the American people back in the ‘60s, by about three quarters of them, said they had confidence the government would do the right thing. Well, how do you know it's going to do the right thing unless it's under the control of the person you elected? So that's the kind of question I'm going to get to. Executive performance, and command structure, and the chain of command, where clearly people get in trouble if they don't deliver. And that's to be a question that goes back to Jim Baker, and I know Joe and I agree. Baker was probably the best chief of staff ever, but there are other models. What's his model of running the White House? I want to know what it is and I'll be asking about it tonight."
