Subject: RE: NYT transition article today
From: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>
To: "John Podesta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:46:17 -0500

Will look for that one.  And Ambinder just did another piece today that names me and Froman.
 
Obama's Transition: Orderly, Quiet, With A Few Early Decisions Made

If secret-keeping is a sign of success, the Obama campaign is well on its way to a solid presidential transition. Only a few details about Obama's extensive transition planning have leaked out, and even the more talkative Obama aides and advisers are keeping mum. They have an election to win.

As has previously been reported,  former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta and Obama friend Cassandra Butts at the Center for American Progress are overseeing large parts of the enterprise.

Several key aides have been tasked with supervising the filling of what's known in Washington vernacular as the "top 100" political positions in the new administration.

Michael Froman, a Harvard Law classmate of Obama's who served in the Treasury Dept. as Robert Rubin's chief of staff, is a key member of the team, as is Chris Lu, who most recently served as Obama's legislative director in the Senate.

Other aides are liaising with the FBI, which has begun background checks on potential White House and national security appointees from both campaigns, and the General Services Administration, which will landlord some prime DC real estate -- the location is unknown -- for the transition team to move in.

About a dozen Obama campaign aides and advisers declined to comment on the transition planning. Many senior political aides have asked not to be put into the loop in order to focus on their day jobs.

Obama is expected announce a few key decisions within a week or two of being elected.

The identity of his nominee for  Secretary of the Treasury will be disclosed in short order.  Former Harvard President Larry Summers and New York Federal Reserve Board president

Timothy F. Geithner  are possibilities.

The foreign policy establishment expects Obama to announce that Defense Secretary Robert Gates will stay at his post for an extended but definite period of time to manage the transition into Afghanistan and out of Iraq, but it's not clear whether Obama has accepted this collective recommendation.

Obama will also name his national security adviser; the identity of this person is not known, although Washington national security hands believe that Gregory Craig, a former senior national security lawyer in the Clinton administration is the frontrunner, although others point to Susan Rice, a former Clinton NSC staffer, as a possibility.

________________________________

From: John Podesta [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Sat 10/25/2008 1:42 PM
To: Chris Lu
Subject: Re: NYT transition article today

Faiz did a post on Think Progress.

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:00 AM, Chris Lu <[email-masked]> wrote:
> NYT: Building a White House Team Before the Election Is Decided
>
>
>
> By PETER BAKER and JACKIE CALMES
>
>
>
> WASHINGTON - With the economy in tatters at home and two wars still raging
> abroad, Senator Barack Obama's team is preparing for a fast start, should he
> win the election, to what could be the most challenging and volatile
> transition between presidents in 75 years.
>
>
>
> Mr. Obama's advisers are sifting résumés, compiling policy options and
> discussing where to hold his first news conference as president-elect.
> Democrats say Mr. Obama hopes to name key members of his White House,
> economic and security teams soon after the election. His transition chief
> has even drafted a sample Inaugural Address.
>
>
>
> Presidential nominees typically start preparing for transitions before the
> election, but Mr. Obama's plans appear more extensive than in the past and
> more advanced than those of Senator John McCain, his Republican opponent.
> Mr. McCain has also assigned confidants to prepare for a transition but
> instructed them to limit their activities as he tries to rescue his
> foundering campaign, Republicans said.
>
>
>
> Already the capital is buzzing with discussion about who would fill top
> positions. Obama advisers mention Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority
> leader, as a possible White House chief of staff, and Timothy F. Geithner,
> president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as Treasury secretary. To
> demonstrate bipartisanship, advisers said Mr. Obama might ask two members of
> President Bush's cabinet to stay, including Defense Secretary Robert M.
> Gates.
>
>
>
> Mr. McCain might also want Mr. Gates to stay, according to Republicans close
> to the campaign, or he might reach beyond the party by tapping Senator
> Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut Democrat turned independent, to head
> the Pentagon or the State Department. Republicans said possible Treasury
> secretaries include John A. Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, and
> Robert B. Zoellick, the president of the World Bank. And some see former
> Navy Secretary John F. Lehman as chief of staff.
>
>
>
> No Time to Wait
>
>
>
> Neither campaign would publicly discuss its transition planning for fear of
> appearing presumptuous with little more than a week to go before voters
> render their judgment. But as the nation braces to change leaders for the
> first time since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, White House officials and
> independent analysts said it was especially imperative for both campaigns to
> be prepared because of the acute economic and national security threats
> confronting the country.
>
>
>
> "The stakes are higher than ever," said Joseph W. Hagin, who helped steer
> Mr. Bush's transition eight years ago and then served as deputy White House
> chief of staff until last summer. "You don't have a lot of time, especially
> today. There's not much time for a shallow learning curve. It's very steep."
>
>
>
> The handover from Mr. Bush to his successor was already shaping up as the
> first wartime transition in 40 years, and the White House has instituted new
> policies to smooth the process. The collapse of Wall Street only heightened
> the urgency, making this potentially the most tumultuous change of power
> since Franklin D. Roosevelt took over from Herbert Hoover in the throes of
> the Great Depression in 1933.
>
>
>
> Both campaigns have been forced to recalibrate their post-election thinking
> and consider how involved the president-elect should be in asserting
> leadership in the 77 days between the election and the Jan. 20 inauguration.
> In setting economic policy, Mr. Bush would presumably be willing to defer to
> some degree to Mr. McCain should he win; the Democratic Congress would
> presumably follow Mr. Obama's lead.
>
>
>
> Mr. Obama has already signaled support for a lame-duck Congressional package
> of public works spending, aid to cities and states and tax rebates for
> workers. Democrats close to his campaign anticipate that he would not wait
> for the inauguration to weigh in on economic policy in other ways as well.
>
>
>
> "His inclination is very much going to be to try to help shape the direction
> of policy" with the Bush administration, rather than "just let them stew in
> it until Jan. 20," said a senior adviser, who insisted on anonymity to
> discuss internal deliberations.
>
>
>
> Still, if he does win, Mr. Obama has to be careful about going too far
> before he actually takes office, as he seemed to acknowledge the other day.
>
>
>
> "We are going to have one president at a time until Jan. 20, when the new
> president is sworn in," he said after meeting with advisers in Richmond, Va.
> "So, you know, there is always a transition period. I don't want to get too
> much ahead of ourselves."
>
>
>
> And Mr. McCain has been quick to accuse Mr. Obama of overconfidence.
> "Senator Obama is measuring the drapes," he said on the campaign trail the
> other day, as he often has.
>
>
>
> Reflection of Campaigns
>
>
>
> Interviews with dozens of Republicans and Democrats over the past two weeks
> suggest that the transition efforts mirror the campaigns - where Mr. Obama's
> is methodical and highly regimented, Mr. McCain's is more tightly held and
> seat of the pants.
>
>
>
> Mr. Obama's transition team is led by a former White House chief of staff,
> John D. Podesta, who has been preparing for the task at the research
> organization he runs, the Center for American Progress, since long before it
> was clear who would win his party's nomination. Two longtime advisers to
> Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the vice-presidential nominee - Edward Kaufman
> and Mark H. Gitenstein - are serving as his representatives to the team,
> although Mr. Biden is said to be so superstitious that he refuses to discuss
> the transition.
>
>
>
> Mr. Podesta has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he
> has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he
> published this summer in a book called "The Power of Progress." The speech
> calls for rebuilding a "grand alliance" with the rest of the world, bringing
> troops home from Iraq, recommitting to the war in Afghanistan, cutting
> poverty in half in 10 years and reducing greenhouse gases 80 percent by
> 2050.
>
>
>
> The Obama team has four groups, which in turn are divided into roughly a
> dozen subgroups, according to Democrats informed about the effort. At first,
> they said, there were three main groups - for personnel, executive actions
> and legislative strategy - but the team recently added a fourth reflecting
> the imperatives of the economic crisis and known as lame duck.
>
>
>
> As he sets about trying to build a team, Mr. Obama has several possibilities
> for White House chief of staff, most notably Mr. Daschle, his close adviser,
> although that could be complicated because Mr. Daschle's wife is a lobbyist.
> Other possibilities mentioned by Democrats include Representative Rahm
> Emanuel of Illinois, former Commerce Secretary William M. Daley and Mr.
> Obama's Senate chief of staff, Pete Rouse. Mr. Podesta, who held the job
> under President Bill Clinton, could also be recruited for another tour of
> duty.
>
>
>
> Besides Mr. Gates, some Obama advisers favor keeping Dr. James B. Peake, the
> veterans affairs secretary. But Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. has
> made clear to colleagues that he has no desire to stay on no matter who
> wins, and neither nominee is inclined to ask him, associates say. Instead,
> Obama advisers are weighing a short-term appointment of an elder statesman
> to get through the current crisis and help instill confidence in global
> markets. The names being mentioned include the former Federal Reserve chief
> Paul A. Volcker and former Treasury Secretaries Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence
> H. Summers.
>
>
>
> But one senior adviser said it would be important to send a message of
> change at a time of economic crisis. "You can expect a fresh face instead of
> a recycled face" at the Treasury, the adviser said. He said that would
> include the boyish-looking Mr. Geithner, 47, who worked at the Treasury
> under Mr. Clinton and his Republican predecessors and has generally gotten
> high marks for his role in shaping the government response to the current
> crisis.
>
>
>
> To run his transition effort, Mr. McCain tapped Mr. Lehman, the former Navy
> secretary who served on the commission that investigated the Sept. 11
> attacks. Two other advisers, William E. Timmons, a Washington lobbyist, and
> William Ball, another former Navy secretary, are assisting.
>
>
>
> Like other 9/11 commissioners, Mr. Lehman has expressed strong concern over
> slow transitions that leave a new administration short-handed to deal with
> an early crisis. But Mr. McCain has been leery about being too
> forward-leaning. Many Republicans who would normally be consulted about
> plans and personnel said they had detected little preparation - perhaps,
> they said, out of a sense that it would only be an exercise in "going
> through the motions," as one put it.
>
>
>
> Many Republicans believe Mr. McCain would bring his top campaign staff with
> him to the White House, including Rick Davis, the campaign manager, whose
> history as a lobbyist has come up repeatedly during the election. Others who
> would most likely accompany Mr. McCain to the White House include Mark
> Salter, his adviser and alter ego; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, his economics
> adviser; and Randy Scheunemann, his national security adviser.
>
>
>
> For the Treasury, some Republicans said McCain might turn to his primary
> rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, or even Mayor Michael R.
> Bloomberg of New York. Mr. Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state, is
> a possibility for either the State Department or the Treasury Department,
> Republicans said.
>
>
>
> A Helping Hand
>
>
>
> The Bush administration has extended more help to its would-be successors
> than any past White House, relying on an intelligence law Mr. Bush signed
> after the 2004 election authorizing the government to conduct pre-election
> background checks on transition officials designated by the campaigns.
>
>
>
> For the first time, the president-elect's advisers will be given interim
> security clearances and access to classified information the day after the
> election.
>
>
>
> The White House also formed a 14-member transition council that met last
> week for the first time to coordinate everything from passing over domestic
> security duties to helping the new team find parking. Mr. Bush's aides are
> preparing a series of briefings and a proposed schedule that they will offer
> the incoming team.
>
>
>
> Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, has made a seamless
> transition a priority, mindful of the rocky, recount-shortened period in
> 2000-1 and a slow confirmation process that left many national security
> officials still unconfirmed when Al Qaeda attacked eight months into the
> administration.
>
>
>
> Several Republicans said Mr. Bolten was planning to recruit his predecessor,
> Andrew H. Card Jr., to help guide this year's transition.
>
>
>
> White House aides said their interest was strictly nonpartisan and noted
> that they would offer each campaign the exact same help.
>
>
>
> "This is not about politics," said Blake Gottesman, Mr. Bolten's deputy.
> "It's about good governance. Everything will be done with full parity."
>
>