On paper, Ron Klain is the man for the job. A perfect knowledge of the workings of the federal state, a companionship with the future president which can be counted in decades, and even an experience in epidemic management, that of Ebola. He can add to this painting the coquetry of having already been brought to the screen in the film Recount devoted, in 2008, to the Homeric counting of Florida during the presidential election of 2000. It had opposed the Democrat Al Gore, whom he was assisting, to the Republican George W. Bush. He was then played by Kevin Spacey.
At 59, Ron Klain is preparing to become the main beam of the administration of Joe Biden. The latter in fact chose him to occupy the functions of chief of staff, or of switchman and metronome of the White House. His appointment was greeted as much by the muse of the Democratic left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as by the conservative polemicist Hugh Hewitt.
This appointment crowns, it is true, a perfectly straight trajectory. Trainee in Congress at age 15, graduated from Georgetown University and then Harvard Law School, he began his career as an assistant to Justice Byron White at the Supreme Court before joining the Senate Judicial Affairs Committee which is chaired by an ambitious Delaware elected official, Joe Biden. Then comes the White House, for the first time, alongside Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s vice-president. After the sealed defeat in Florida, he then alternated according to political fortunes the private sector (including lobbyist activities) and the executive.
Appreciated skills
He returned to the White House in 2009 as chief of staff of Vice President Joe Biden. Its effectiveness explains its choice by Barack Obama to coordinate the federal response to the Ebola epidemic in 2014, even if he has no experience in epidemiology, which earned him the mockery of the satirical program of the NBC channel “Saturday Night Live”.
His skills were so appreciated that he was asked a year later by Hillary Clinton, when Joe Biden had not yet given up a possible presidential candidacy of 2016, to join his campaign team. He takes the plunge and the vice-president’s clan cries out treason without denying him definitively.
When Joe Biden announced his candidacy, three years later, Ron Klain had already returned to his orbit. The victory of November 3, 2020 is synonymous with a third return to the White House, this time to play the leading roles. Especially since the years have caught up with his mentor.
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