04 December 2008
A Checklist for New Presidents
by Stephen Hess
One can think of an incoming president’s tasks as “The Three Ps”: Personnel, Process, Policy. He must review the policy commitments he made during the campaign. In what order should he try to honor them? Some will take time. But because President Franklin Roosevelt created a remarkable record in his first hundred days, all presidents know that “100 days” is a marker the media will use to judge them.
Stephen Hess is Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution and Distinguished Research Professor of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. His most recent book is What Do We Do Now? A Workbook for the President-Elect.
Presidential elections in the United States take place every fourth year on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November -- November 4 in 2008 -- with the winner taking office, as it is written in the Constitution, “at noon on the 20th day of January.” This gap between election and inauguration is a uniquely American phenomenon. If there is to be a new president, it is a period of great interest around the world. It is also a period with a history of confusion and even, on occasion, dire policy consequences. This does not happen in parliamentary systems, where there is instant governmental turnover.
The American transition gap goes back to the country’s beginning in the 18th century, when rutted roads made it difficult to quickly assemble a new government. Indeed, presidents were inaugurated on March 4 until the date was finally changed to January 20 in 1933. Since then, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower (who was elected in 1952 and sworn in to office in 1953), John Kennedy (1960-61), Richard Nixon (1968-69), Jimmy Carter (1976-77), Ronald Reagan (1980-81), George H.W. Bush (1988-89), Bill Clinton (1992-93), and George W. Bush (2000-01) have maneuvered with varying degrees of success to create their presidential administrations in the allotted 10-plus weeks.
Their job is infinitely more difficult than that of the parliamentary prime minister who arrives in office trailed by a shadow cabinet or a government-in-exile. The U.S. president-elect starts from scratch. Moreover, no candidate did pre-election planning until Jimmy Carter in 1976. Conventional wisdom in the political world was that voters would resent activities that might look like candidates were taking victory for granted. Even now, early planning is done in a very guarded fashion.
Selecting the Cabinet
The first order of transition business is for the president-elect to pick his White House staff and cabinet. This is a much more arduous task than in a parliamentary system. Whereas the prime minister chooses his cabinet officers from his colleagues in the legislature, the American president-elect casts his net as widely as he wishes, usually including state governors, business and labor officials, and academics, in addition to members of Congress. There is overheated lobbying by individuals and groups for these choice jobs, as well as endless press speculation. The cabinet consists of 15 departments -- Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Treasury, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. Each department is headed by a secretary whose appointment must be confirmed by a majority vote of the U.S. Senate before assuming office.
Presidents now make an effort to pick a cabinet that “looks like America.” This is a notable change from even the recent past. Except for one woman in the Eisenhower cabinet, initial Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Nixon cabinets were all composed of white males. There was an African American in the Carter and Reagan cabinets; an African American and two Hispanic Americans in the George H.W. Bush cabinet. But it was not until Bill Clinton that only half of his department secretaries were of white European origin. Diversity as reflected in George W. Bush’s cabinet was African American (State, Education), Asian American (Labor, Transportation), Hispanic American (House and Urban Development), and Lebanese American (Energy).
Presidents can also give themselves some wiggle room by expanding the definition of who is a cabinet member, as when President Clinton added three women -- as U.N. ambassador, as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, and as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Personnel matters make the biggest headlines, especially when a nomination has to be withdrawn because of something that the vetting (clearance process) discovers. Bill Clinton got an acceptable candidate for attorney general only on his third try, for instance. Other nominees are controversial and test the new president’s political skill at getting them confirmation by the Senate. When George H.W. Bush’s candidate for secretary of defense was rejected in 1989, it was the first time in history that an incoming president had been denied a cabinet member of his choice. These are embarrassments, and they are also looked upon as an early indicator of the next president’s judgment.
Questions of Organization
Beyond the headlines about people, the president-elect will be making major process decisions that are usually of little interest to the public. How does he organize his White House staff? Who reports directly to him, and who reports through his chief of staff? How much tension or conflict does he wish to incorporate into policy-formulating? What does he want the relationship to be between his White House staff and his cabinet? What new functions or offices does he wish to put in the White House, and what offices might he wish to eliminate? Every president has some special cause that he wants to promote. Richard Nixon added a White House Office on Volunteerism; Bill Clinton added a White House Office for Women’s Initiatives; and George W. Bush added an Office of Faith-Based and Community Outreach Initiatives.
Some of these little-noted decisions can have vast repercussions. President Dwight Eisenhower had created an elaborate national security system in the White House, but the incoming president, John Kennedy, thought it was burdensome and immediately disbanded it. Within months of taking office, however, there was the disastrous U.S.-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, and Kennedy was left without a properly functioning White House operation to rely on.
One can think of an incoming president’s tasks as “The Three Ps”: Personnel, Process, Policy. He must review the policy commitments he made during the campaign. In what order should he try to honor them? Some will take time. But because President Franklin Roosevelt created a remarkable record in his first hundred days, all presidents know that “100 days” is a marker the media will use to judge them.
Moreover, because a president’s popularity is measurably greatest at the moment he takes office, every president wants to “hit the ground running,” as scholar James Pfiffner puts it. Sometimes, however, it doesn’t work out this way. Bill Clinton’s campaign had been based on reviving the economy, yet during a transition press conference he accented a pledge to end the ban on homosexuals in the armed forces; this emotional issue -- “gays in the military” -- dominated his early months in office. As Pfiffner then noted, Clinton “hit the ground stumbling.”
Some time during the transition, the president-elect is going to have to go to the White House to meet with the president. If they are of different political parties, this can be a delicate moment. Often the retiring president wants to commit his successor to some action or policy. This is not usually in the incoming president’s interest. Franklin Roosevelt rebuffed Herbert Hoover’s effort to involve him in his welfare proposals. After all, in a few days Roosevelt could introduce his own proposals.
But there was a different sort of interaction between outgoing and incoming presidents in 1980. President Jimmy Carter was engaged in negotiations over the release of American hostages in Iran. President-elect Ronald Reagan wanted these successfully concluded by the time he took office, and he let it be known that the Iranians would not get a better deal from him. The hostages were released moments after Reagan was inaugurated.
Another presidents’ meeting had international ramifications. Between his defeat in November 1992 and leaving office in January 1993, President George H.W. Bush sent U.S. troops to Somalia, a humanitarian effort to help relieve the suffering of a bloody civil war. He sought and received the support of President-elect Clinton. According to Clinton’s memoir, “At the time, Bush’s national security advisor, General Brent Scowcroft, had told [Clinton aide] Sandy Berger they would be home before my inauguration.” That was not to be. The Black Hawk Down disaster [when two American Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu, Somalia] occurred on October 3, 1993, and Clinton wrote, “The battle of Mogadishu haunted me. I thought I knew how President Kennedy felt after the Bay of Pigs.”
Somewhat Lesser Issues
Not all decisions the president-elect has to make during the transition are momentous. Some might remind him why he dreamed of one day living in the White House. There have been four presidential desks. Which one does he want the White House curator to move into the Oval Office? Or would he like to bring his own, as Lyndon Johnson did?
Most presidents have hung portraits of past presidents in the Oval Office. To whom should he give the place of honor over the white marble mantel? George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Franklin Roosevelt?
And at noon on January 20, when he takes the oath of office standing on the U.S. Capitol’s west front terrace facing the National Mall, an audience of thousands in front of him and millions more around the world watching on television, he will place his hand on the Bible, opened to a favorite passage, if he wishes. hat shall it be?
“He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” Chosen by President Jimmy Carter.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Chosen by President Ronald Reagan.
The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.
