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A political quick-change artist: He helped Rendell get elected; now he's managing the transition

Monday, November 18, 2002

By James O'Toole, Post-Gazette Politics Editor

After spending more than a year of long hours on Ed Rendell's campaign for governor, David Sweet might have looked forward to a post-election respite.

Instead, the life of the lobbyist and former campaign manager has been engulfed in a blizzard of resumes, a squall of phone calls.

"It's just bizarre," Sweet said in a hurried phone interview last week. "I have a huge stack [of resumes]; David [Cohen] has a stack; [former Lt. Gov.] Mark [Singel] has a stack.. I suppose it's a good sign that people want to work in a Rendell administration. ... [but] several days in the last two weeks I've had to say to myself: 'I can either answer all these calls or I can do my job.' "

	Newsmaker profile Name: David Sweet Date of birth: Oct. 8, 1948 Place of birth: Pittsburgh In the news: Sweet, after serving as Ed Rendell's campaign manager, was named executive director of the Democrat's transition team. He's considered a prime candidate to have a senior position in the new administration, a possibility he won't comment on. Quote: "I've spoken with people who worked with Shapp, Thornburgh, Casey, Ridge; that's been helpful. We've gotten some good advice about both identifying and being ready to deal with the major problems that a new governor is going to confront. That's not something you could find in a library anywhere." Education: Sweet graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a classmate of Judge Marjorie Rendell, Pennsylvania's first lady-to-be. He received a master's degree from the University of Chicago and a law degree from Dickinson College of Law. Family: Sweet and his wife, the former Eveline Bulatovic, live in Harrisburg with their children, Andrew, 14, and Natalie, 10.

Sweet, fresh from quarterbacking the Rendell election effort, is executive director of the Rendell transition team, helping to map the structure and choose the key people to manage the $20 billion enterprise the Philadelphia Democrat will inherit in January. As in the campaign, Sweet is working under Cohen, the Comcast Corp. executive who was Rendell's chief of staff and alter ego in his first term as mayor of Philadelphia. Singel, another senior campaign adviser, is the co-chairman of the transition effort.

Sweet began his new job with a unique and very personal history lesson, picking the brains of the select circle of people who have handled similar transitions.

"I've spoken with people who worked with [former Govs. Milton] Shapp, [Dick] Thornburgh, [Robert] Casey, [Tom] Ridge -- that's been helpful," he said. "We've gotten some good advice about both identifying and being ready to deal with the major problems that a new governor is going to confront. That's not something you could find in a library anywhere."

Most public attention to the transition inevitably focuses on people, on the jockeying for positions in the Cabinet and other senior spots of the new administration. But, to a certain extent, each new administration reinvents state government. Sweet pointed out that some of the most important early decisions that the transition team, and ultimately, Rendell, will have to make involve not people but structure -- the framework for how the key players in the new government will interact with each other and their boss.

"They told us," he said of the officials of administrations past, " 'We structured the office of the governor this way'; 'These are the ways you communicated with the Cabinet.' They did vary from administration to administration."

One special challenge for the Rendell team is that the new governor will be working with -- or against -- a Legislature where the opposite party is firmly in control of both chambers.

"These are uncharted water for people who have been around Harrisburg a long time," Sweet noted. "Usually the Legislature is in control of the same party [as the governor], or at least the control is split."

To make this political co-habitation work, Sweet said, "you have to open lines of communication; that has been done."

"What it comes down to is a combination of being nice and being strong. Ed Rendell is pretty good at both of those. ... There will be rocky times, there will be partisan and policy differences. If you are totally a good guy, you will be taken advantage of. If you are too confrontational, unless you hold all the cards, you will lose, and Ed doesn't hold all the cards," he said.

If there are unique aspects about this state government changeover, there are also echoes of Sweet's own legislative career that suggest that the more things change, the more things in Harrisburg stay the same.

Sweet, the son of the late Washington County President Judge Charles Sweet, was elected to the state House in 1976. In 1988, he left the seat to run, unsuccessfully, for the Democratic nomination for state treasurer. Despite the backing of late Gov. Robert Casey and the Democratic Party organization, he was soundly beaten in that race by Catherine Baker Knoll, now his boss's teammate as lieutenant governor-elect.

Sweet considered running for lieutenant governor in 1986, but ended up dropping out of the race. Casey considered Sweet his designated running mate then, but ended up settling on Singel, another member of the Rendell team.

Rendell's policy agenda contains elements long familiar to Sweet.

The governor-elect has said his first priority is a reform of the state's property tax system. In 1988, Sweet was the prime legislative architect of a property tax reform plan. On the night the measure passed the Senate, he personally rushed it back to the House so it could be signed by the speaker before a midnight deadline. Despite the strong backing of the Casey administration, however, that reform plan was soundly rejected in a May 1989 referendum.

Rendell promises an ambitious program of state borrowing to spur economic development. Sweet was one of the more vociferous advocates of an economic development bond issue approved in an 1984 referendum.

Seeking more revenue for education, Rendell proposes to legalize slot machines at racetracks. As a legislator, Sweet was a sponsor of a bill to legalize slots, albeit at Pocono resorts rather than at racetracks.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this year, Rendell suggested that Sweet "would make a great chief of staff."

But last week, Sweet declined to be drawn into any speculation about who would take that key position. He said the team he directs was still early in the process of sifting resumes for senior positions. He sees some urgency in identifying a budget chief for the new administration, pointing out that, at the bureaucratic level, the job of crafting the annual state spending plan was already well under way even before the first vote was cast earlier this month.

"We don't have the luxury of a lot of time," Sweet said, "But for the most part, it's more important to get it done right than to get it done quickly."