His other major task, Mr. Von Essen said, is to map a strategy for rebuilding the department that his successor can use.
But the president appeared increasingly close to making a final decision, and is expected to map a strategy for the next phase of diplomacy on Friday at Camp David with his most stalwart ally on Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain.
This morning, about half a dozen of these Democrats met with Commerce Secretary William M. Daley and two other top administration officials to review battle plans for the House's two-week spring recess that starts on Friday, and to map a strategy for the countdown to the decisive floor vote the week of May 22. Opponents and supporters say the vote is too close to call.
The Treasury Department, meanwhile, is mapping out a strategy for using the second $350 billion that Congress recently freed up for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that was aimed at infusing fresh capital into the banking system.
While Mr. Baker and other members of the legal team prepared for Monday's oral arguments, here in Austin aides were once again mapping out a strategy for Mr. Bush if victory came in the next few days.
On Thursday, before receiving official word from Justice Souter of his intention to step aside, senior White House officials met in the West Wing to begin mapping out a strategy for how to get a nomination through, officials said.
But the notion of forward-looking career planning and intentional information gathering is foreign to many postdocs, who, as one audience member put it, will spend weeks designing an experiment and days tracking down a particular article, but no time at all mapping out a strategy for their own futures.
Romania, for instance, mapped out a strategy for helping the Roma, but financed little of it.
Ms. Gillibrand's top fund-raisers recently called an urgent meeting to map out a strategy for fending off Mr. Ford.
He said that Mr. Dole was "really good on health care for a Republican" and that the two had mapped out a strategy for compromise.
