Subject: another transition article
From: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>
To: "Chris Lu" <[email-masked]>, "Adam Hitchcock" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Valerie Jarrett" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Pete Rouse" <[email-masked]>, "Melody Barnes" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Jim Steinberg" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked],
Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], "Jayne Thomisee" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], "Katie Johnson" <[email-masked]>, "Elizabeth Utrup" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:04:21 -0500

Again, more fiction than fact in here . . . 

________________________________

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-transition20-2008oct20,0,6265
181.story

From the Los Angeles Times

McCain and Obama get ready for the White House

Both candidates have transition teams at work, but experts say Obama's
operation is picking up speed.

By Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

October 20, 2008

WASHINGTON - Even as they plot their paths to victory, Barack Obama and
John McCain are thinking past election day, enlisting advisors to
quietly vet potential Cabinet secretaries, devise a governing strategy
and assemble the rudiments of a new White House.

Preparing for the presidency is something the two campaigns are loath to
talk about. Neither wants to appear presumptuous to voters who won't
pick a winner for two weeks. But with the economy teetering and the
nation at war, both sides are planning for a transition that students of
the presidency say is the most consequential since 1861, on the eve of
the Civil War.

"I don't mean to be hysterical, but this is the toughest transition
faced by any president since [Abraham] Lincoln," said Paul Light, a
professor at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service.
"There is very little wiggle room. There's the fiscal crisis, we are in
a couple of wars and there is international tension."

Of the two candidates, Obama's preparations to take over Jan. 20 are
further along. People close to him say that a kind of Democratic
government-in-exile is laying detailed plans to smoothly take control
should he prevail.

McCain aides, echoing the candidate's criticism that Obama is already
"measuring the drapes" in the Oval Office, said Obama's transition work
is a sign of overconfidence. Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, said
the Illinois senator was making a "public splash" by planning for a
future administration.

"It's not in the nature of John McCain to tempt fate," he said.

The Arizona senator's effort is headed by John F. Lehman Jr., a Navy
secretary under President Reagan. William Timmons Sr., a prominent
Washington lobbyist who helped plan Reagan's and President Bush's
transitions, sent material about the mechanics of presidential
transitions to the McCain campaign a month ago.

In an odd political twist, the Obama operation is dominated by alumni of
the Clinton political machine, some of whom worked for Hillary Rodham
Clinton during the Democratic primaries.

John Podesta, a chief of staff under President Clinton, has spent much
of the election year helping 50 experienced Washington hands --
including a couple of Republicans -- compile a comprehensive transition
blueprint, one that most thought would be used by Hillary Clinton.

An early outline showed it to have 50 chapters, written for the most
part by Clinton veterans, with planning down to the sub-Cabinet level.
Now that project, soon to be published as a book, would help guide an
Obama transition if he were to win.

Podesta, who declined to discuss the transition, is based at the Center
for American Progress, a left-of-center Washington think tank set up by
Clinton allies that has emerged as the unofficial headquarters of
Obama's transition planning. With no designated transition office,
Podesta is coordinating much of the work from the center, trying to keep
his two jobs separate.

Podesta has set up teams aligned with Cabinet agencies and government
departments. Leon E. Panetta, another former Clinton chief of staff and
a onetime California congressman, is part of a group evaluating
candidates for senior White House staff and high-level national security
and economic policy positions.

"They're collecting names of people and resumes," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel
(D-Ill.), an Obama supporter who also worked in the Clinton White House.

Prominent aides to Clinton, such as former Treasury Secretary Robert E.
Rubin and former White House economic advisor Gene Sperling, are helping
shape the economic ideas that would inform an Obama administration, a
mission that is all the more urgent with financial markets in turmoil.

"Definitely, the next president will have to face it immediately," said
Jason Furman, a top economic advisor to Obama who noted that he would
want swift passage of a plan aimed at the middle class. Last week, Obama
called for tax credits for businesses that created jobs and a 90-day
moratorium on home foreclosures.

On environmental matters, the Obama team is getting advice from Carol
Browner, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency in the Clinton
era.

Those close to Podesta say there are intentional parallels between a
possible Obama transition and one widely heralded as a model: the
carefully calibrated transfer of power that took place in 1980 when
staff members working for Reagan collaborated with a relatively new
Washington think tank, the Heritage Foundation.

One expert at the Center for American Progress advising Obama, defense
analyst Lawrence Korb, played roles in the Reagan transition and the
Reagan Defense Department. In 1980, Korb wrote a chapter on defense
policy for the transition book prepared by the Heritage Foundation. Now,
Korb is writing a chapter on Iraq for the Center for American Progress'
book.

No decisions seem to have been made about who would staff the highest
levels of an Obama administration. But names are floating about. Tom
Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, has been mentioned as a
possible chief of staff. Daschle is a senior fellow at the same think
tank that is home to Podesta.

In an interview last week, Daschle did not rule out an appointment as
chief of staff. "It's way too early to make any comments about it," he
said. "It's always a possibility, but I've not had any conversations
with anybody about future positions and don't intend to."

A possible holdover from the Bush administration is Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates. Senior national security advisors to Obama and McCain
have acknowledged both are considering asking Gates to stay on to
provide continuity in a time of war.

Gates has repeatedly said he intends to retire to his home near Seattle
when Bush's term ends. Asked Friday at a Pentagon news conference if his
thinking had changed, Gates said: "Well, let me just say that I'm
getting a lot more career advice and counseling than I might have
anticipated. I think I'll leave it at that."

Obama and McCain have asked the Bush administration to quickly grant
security clearances to people who would play key roles in a transition.
Bush signed an executive order this month creating a special council
empowered to arrange briefing material for political appointees.

With the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks a vivid memory, the White House
wants to give its successor the tools to cope with a national security
crisis should one arise early on, experts said.

"In this transition, the government has been doing more than it has in
the past to start early," said Martha Joynt Kumar, a political science
professor at Towson University and an expert on presidential
transitions. "That's a result of 9/11."

Already, infighting has broken out among people working on Obama's
transition. One sticking point involves nonprofit advocates anxious to
ensure allies are chosen for offices that award grants.

"People have transition fever now in the Obama camp," Light said. "It
looks already like the classic transition fights over who gets which
position. Sometimes these disputes can become debilitating."

[email-masked]

[email-masked]

Times staff writer Peter Spiegel contributed to this report.