The Next Administration Must Set Priorities for Homeland Security

Looking for a nuclear weapon or dirty-bomb materials.

For policy advice, McCain looks to Joe Lieberman, who is chairman of the Senate's homeland security committee, and former DHS head Tom Ridge. "The next president has to improve relations with the state leaders, including some intelligence sharing, so they can make better decisions on what facilities to guard, for instance," says Ridge. The Obama campaign says former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke—who sounded warnings about possible al Qaeda attacks before 9/11—and Stephen Flynn are the security experts to whom their candidate most listens.

The Bush administration, with much on its agenda after taking office in January 2001, didn't grasp the urgency of the intelligence about al Qaeda plotting. Current DHS chief Michael Chertoff says he wants to be sure that that isn't repeated. Both candidates will soon receive a series of lengthy classified briefings, and after the election, the winner and his team will participate in disaster exercises. Promising a "brutally candid memo" to his successor about his own successes and failures, Chertoff says that the department most needs streamlined congressional oversight and a clearer appropriations process. Both bureaucratic reforms may indeed be needed, but neither issue is likely to get voters to the polls.