Next US president 'faces hardest transition in years'

Analysts say change over will be toughest since 1933 because of wars and the financial crisis.

A banner showing Barack Obama prior to a campaign rally with at a school in Nevada.

WASHINGTON // If the near two-year-long US presidential campaign was gruelling, an even more epic task faces whomever wins on Tuesday: building a new government, and fast. The next president will have just 76 days starting on Wednesday to do everything needed to prepare to take the reins of the executive branch from George W Bush at the strike of noon on Jan 20, inauguration day. And when he walks into the White House after his swearing-in on Capitol Hill, he will be greeted by what may be an unsettling sight: there will be practically nothing, and no one, there.
"It would be as if the new CEO of General Motors, Exxon-Mobil or IBM found that all his plant managers and their assistants were gone, headquarters was deserted save for janitors and secretaries, file cabinets were empty, no records or documents were readily available and his own computer was missing its hard drive," said John P Burke, a specialist in the US presidency at the University of Vermont and author of Presidential Transitions: From Politics to Practice.
Transition planning is arguably the president-elect's most critical task in any year, but in 2008, it may be more important than ever. No matter who steps into the role of commander-in-chief, he will inherit financial market turmoil at home and abroad, a domestic economy that has soured, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a feeling shared by more than 85 per cent of the US public that the country is on the wrong track.
"This is just an extraordinary period of time," Mr Burke said. "This is going to be the toughest transition any American president has faced, including Franklin Roosevelt, since 1933."
Victory on election day forces an immediate shift in focus. Suddenly, the candidate is no longer a candidate, but a president-in-waiting. The massive campaign operation that has centred largely on policy ideas must transition into one that lays the groundwork for governance, where those ideas are actually implemented. Many of the players that make that happen are new - what makes a good political operative is not necessarily what makes a good presidential chief of staff - and there is often a tension between the two groups. Transition planning actually begins well before the election results are in, albeit quietly and out of public view. Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, John Podesta, has been working for months on Mr Obama's transition planning, while John Lehman, the navy secretary under Ronald Reagan, is said to be doing the same for Mr McCain. Mr Obama said last week he had a "pretty good idea" of some people he might pick to serve in his administration - he has said he would include Republicans in his cabinet - but did not offer more information because he did not want to "jump the gun". Mr McCain has been similarly circumspect. "Obviously they want to avoid seeming to be presumptuous because nobody likes that, but at the same time the only responsible thing is to start months ahead," said George C Edwards III, a political scientist at Texas A&M University who sits on the advisory board of the White House Transition Project, a scholarly group that helps both parties plan for transitions. In a 2001 report called Meeting the Freight Train Head On, co-written by Mr Edwards, the group laid out the mammoth job facing every president-elect. In the short, frenzied period between the election and the inauguration, he must assemble his White House team - ideally one with some experience - select and vet more than a dozen cabinet secretaries, prepare an inaugural address and send the US Congress a multi-trillion-dollar federal budget that opens the first window onto his spending priorities. Testifying on Capitol Hill in September on the transition process, Patricia McGinnis, the head of the Council for Excellence in Government, said the incoming president should aim to name his chief of staff as soon as possible after election day, have his cabinet confirmed by the US Senate on inauguration day and have the top sub-cabinet posts confirmed in the first month. The White House staff alone is equivalent in size to a small town; Mr Burke, of the University of Vermont, said there are normally about 1,500 to 2,000 people in policy positions, with scores more playing supporting roles. There are also about 1,000 political positions appointed by the president requiring Senate confirmation. Modern US presidents are generally measured against the standard of Franklin Roosevelt's "100 Days". That was the period when the president, elected during the Great Depression, sent Congress a flurry of legislation designed to get the country back on its feet and - equally important - restore confidence. Mr Clinton was not known for having the smoothest start; he was slow to name some key positions, had trouble with a few cabinet appointments because of poor vetting and got mired in the policy issue of homosexuals in the military. Jimmy Carter had tried to focus on too many things at once, leaving Congress and the public unsure of his priorities. The Reagan White House, by contrast, had a sharper focus. He forged forward with an economic programme, including tax cuts, and that was it. "Whatever it is that's your highest priority, you have to strike fast to exploit whatever opportunities there are," Mr Edwards said. "If you wait after you have spent your political capital, whatever that is, if you wait, you're going to have a very difficult time." This year, external circumstances are likely to drive policy decisions in the president-elect's first days in office, no matter what plans - for health care or education reform or energy independence - he proposed on the campaign trail. "We now have an interesting combination of serious economic problems which are likely to get worse? and we have two wars going on," Mr Edwards said. "It's a very full plate." [e-mail]