Obama and McCain Face Most Pressure Since FDR to Speed Transition
By John Brinsley and Edwin Chen
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- On the night of Nov. 4, either Barack Obama or John McCain will be celebrating his election as president. It may be a short party.
Whoever wins will come under intense, immediate pressure -- unmatched since Franklin D. Roosevelt's election in 1932 -- to begin participating in policy making over which he'll have no formal control for 2 1/2 months. Within days, the winner's economic advisers may be heading to the U.S. Treasury to help tackle the nation's worst financial crisis in more than seven decades.
``The situation is so serious that he has to be involved,'' says James Thurber, director of the center for congressional and presidential studies at American University in Washington. ``But he has to be very careful because he's not the president and won't be the president until he's sworn in.''
President George W. Bush's Treasury officials are encouraging the candidates to waste no time getting a grasp of the $700 billion financial-rescue effort, even saying their aides can work out of the department, according to people who have spoken with the department.
That unparalleled level of cooperation reflects a sense of urgency that the handoff by Bush be as smooth and fast as possible.
``The net effect you're searching for is a seamless transition,'' says Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University in Houston. ``It's exceedingly important that whoever wins names his economic team immediately. The Treasury post this time is gigantic.''
Abandoning Tradition
That means either Obama or McCain would have to abandon the president-elect's traditional hands-off role in the months leading up to Inauguration Day, on Jan. 20.
One awkward moment may come just 11 days after the election, when Bush convenes a summit of world leaders in Washington to discuss the crisis. The presence of the president- elect may cause some confusion.
``World leaders won't really know who's in charge,'' says Mickey Kantor, who worked on Bill Clinton's transition team in 1992 and later served as Commerce secretary. ``If Bush and the president-elect aren't on the same page, it could be confusing.''
With two wars topping a long national security agenda, there's also pressure to engineer a smooth transition on foreign policy. Domestic issues dominate voter concerns, however, as the economy reels from record foreclosures, rising unemployment, a credit crunch and a likely recession.
Paulson's Successor
One act of reassurance for investors and consumers would be for the winner to quickly select someone to replace Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. That idea was endorsed last week by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, who says Bush should even consider nominating his successor's choice for Treasury secretary.
That appointment should come ``maybe as soon as his victory speech,'' says Charles Geisst, author of ``Wall Street: a History'' and a finance professor at Manhattan College in New York. The next Treasury chief ``is going to have to be someone strong enough to tell markets that `it's going to take some time''' to resolve the crisis.
Paulson, who this month won unprecedented power to use taxpayer funds to take stakes in financial firms and purchase troubled assets, said in an interview last week with Charlie Rose he was working to ensure ``the best transition ever.''
Seeking Approval
Paulson named Assistant Secretary Neel Kashkari to lead the Troubled Asset Relief Program on an interim basis, and said he wants to name a permanent head ``right after the election'' with the approval of both Bush and the president-elect.
While both campaigns are reluctant to discuss their candidate's post-election plans, Obama's advisers said the crisis dictates that the transition may need to be approached differently than in the past, including an immediate response after Nov. 4.
Obama, 47, an Illinois senator, declined to commit to attending the Nov. 15 summit of world leaders in Washington, though he has welcomed the idea.
He described the meeting as ``an opportunity to advance the kind of cooperation that I called for last month,'' at an Oct. 22 press conference in Richmond, Virginia.
A McCain campaign spokeswoman says the 72-year-old Arizona Republican's actions after Nov. 4 would speak for themselves, should he prevail. ``All presidents-elect engage on all policy issues by organizing their staff and getting briefings,'' says communications director Jill Hazelbaker.
McCain Participation
Any McCain participation in the summit, she says, would depend on the Bush administration and other nations.
Whichever candidate wins will face a balancing act: While he must convey a sense of engagement and readiness to confront the challenge, he has to avoid the perception of being too eager to take the reins of power -- or of becoming too tied to policies set by his predecessor.
The last time a presidential transition took place under such dire conditions was after the 1932 election. It was a period when fear and uncertainty gripped the nation, and that included a near-successful attempted assassination of President- elect Roosevelt that claimed the life of Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak.
A month before Roosevelt's inauguration in March 1933, he rejected suggestions from President Herbert Hoover to cooperate on plans to rescue the economy and the nation's banks. When Hoover asked for a joint statement to calm the public, Roosevelt took two weeks to decline the invitation -- responding only after getting a second letter.
Keeping His Distance
``Roosevelt went out of his way not to associate himself with Hoover,'' says Professor Fred Greenstein of Princeton University, a presidential historian.
Three years later, the period between the election and inauguration was shortened from four months to 11 weeks.
In December 1992, a month after being elected president, Bill Clinton convened a meeting of economists and businessmen to chart a new course for the economy. Kantor, who helped organize the gathering in Little Rock, Arkansas, says the winner of the 2008 election won't have the luxury of that much time.
``People are going to be looking for the new president- elect to show leadership immediately,'' he says.
Leon Panetta, Clinton's former chief of staff, says the president-elect's first priority is to ``put together a team,'' not run the country.
``It's still President Bush's show,'' Panetta says. ``Frankly, the president-elect doesn't have the power to commit to anything.''
Still, the pressure to get involved may be overwhelming.
``There's only one president at a time,'' says John P. Burke, a University of Vermont professor who has written two books about presidential transitions. ``But maybe we've got to think about an exception here.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Washington at Echen32@bloomberg.net; John Brinsley in Washington at jbrinsley2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: October 26, 2008 19:00 EDT |
