Poker Face

Brittany Ballenstedt and I have a feature coming out in the December issue in which we note that the good government community is coordinating better than ever on their approach to the presidential transition, and I'll have an update on Friday on what those groups are doing to try to influence President-elect Obama's emerging management agenda. But one thing I will say is that I really wouldn't want to play cards with some of the key leaders of good government groups right now. Just like everyone else within a country mile of the Obama transition team, these folks have suddenly developed incredibly intense message discipline. My sense at the moment is that the government reform groups that focus on policy, like the Center for American Progress, are involved with the transition team at a higher level (see: Podesta, John), but that the management reformers are there and are pushing hard to get their message across.