Clinton's presidential campaign launched an effort to plan for a prospective presidential transition in August 1992.[1] The effort was known as the "Clinton-Gore Pre-Transition Planning Foundation" or the "Clinton–Gore Presidential Transition Planning Foundation".[2][3] Clinton chose to have the effort be headed by his campaign chair Mickey Kantor.[4][5] Businessman Gerald Stern was named as the coordinator of the planning group on September 24, 1992, heading its day-to-day operations.[3][6] Assisting him was lawyer John Hart.[6] Other members of the team included Warren Christopher, Henry Cisneros, Vernon Jordan, and Madeleine Kunin.[2][5] The team was headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, in an office suite in a building only blocks away from the campaign's headquarters.[2][5][6] Barry Carter oversaw the national security aspects of the transition planning.[6] The team collected vast amounts of research on past presidential transitions, and compiled a large briefing books outlining a strategy for a potential transition.[2][6][1] By late-October, the transition effort had a full-time staff of between ten and fifteen people.[6] By late-October, the team had also received roughly 2,000 inquiries from job seekers in their prospective presidential administration.[5] Despite the early start, few decisions about hires for Clinton's administration were outlined until after the election.[4]
Planning for the logistics of the potential transition was overseen by John P. Hart.[5] The transition team had already, in the weeks before the election, begun preparing office space in downtown Washington, D.C. to house part of the prospective post-election transition's staff if Clinton or another candidate were to unseat him in the election.[5]
On October 6, 1992, President George H. W. Bush signed an appropriation that would provide $5 million to a prospective transition. If Clinton or another candidate were to win, the appropriation would give the president-elect's transition team $3.5 million, and give $1.5 million to Bush's administration to aid them in the transition. This was in accordance with a 1988 increase in funding for presidential transitions to these amounts.[7]
Official transition
Letter which outgoing president George H. W. Bush left in the Oval Office for incoming president Bill Clinton at the end of the transition
Text of the letter:
January 20, 1993 Dear Bill, When I walked into this office just now I felt the same sense of wonder and respect that I felt four years ago. I know you will feel that, too. I wish you great happiness here. I never felt the loneliness some Presidents have described. There will be very tough times, made even more difficult by criticism you may not think is fair. I’m not a very good one to give advice; but just don’t let the critics discourage you or push you off course. You will be our President when you read this note. I wish you well. I wish your family well. Your success now is our country’s success. I am rooting hard for you. Good luck— George
After Clinton defeated Bush in the election, both Bush and Clinton publicly proclaimed their desire for a smooth transition between their administrations.[8]
Following the election, after tensions between Kantor and Clinton's top campaign staff had arisen, Kantor was dismissed as head of the transition effort.[4] On November 6, Warren Christopher was named as the transition director and Vernon Jordan was named to serve as the chairman of the transition's board, making them co-leaders of the transition.[4][2][11][12] Bush named Andrew Card to head the Bush administration's role in the transition.[2][13]
On November 13, Clinton named several dozen other members of his transition team. The members he named were noted by The New York Times to have, "diversity in age, sex and ethnic background".[12]Robert Reich was named to lead the economic policy team, and Sandy Berger was named to lead the foreign policy team.[12] Clinton's transition team largely consisted of individuals that had worked on his presidential campaign.[14]
On November 13, Clinton outlined ethics guidelines for his transition staff. These guidelines would forbid any staff or volunteers from, in the first six months of the Clinton administration, lobbying the government in areas they had worked on during the transition. The ethics guidelines also required transition workers to file detailed financial disclosure forms, and forbid them from doing any work on the transition that appeared to be a conflict of interest.[12][15] These ethics guidelines received praise from the groups Common Cause and Public Citizen.[15]
In mid-November, the Little Rock operations of the transition moved their offices to a new building.[16]
On November 18, President Bush hosted President-elect Clinton at the White House.[17] The following day, First Lady Barbara Bush hosted a tour of the residence for incoming First Lady Hillary Clinton.[18]
In the early weeks of the transition, the president-elect's communications director, George Stephanopoulos, said that the president-elect was receiving roughly 30,000 items of mail per day.[15]
In addition to the $3.5 million, the government provided the Clinton transition team, $5.3 million was raised through private contributions to fund their effort.[19]
The transition was considered chaotic, in some respects.[4][20] In late January 1993, shortly after the transition ended, historian Carl Brauer described his assessment of performance of Clinton's transition as, "mixed".[21] The transition was headquartered both in Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C., with this geographic split of the operation creating some problems.[4] The main decisions tended to be made from the Little Rock headquarters, where Clinton largely remained during the transition.[4][2] The transition's policy advisors were ideologically split between centrists and liberals.[4] Clinton's transition took longer than his predecessor to designate appointees to top positions.[4][22] The transition began publicly announcing the first his designees to be appointed to major executive branch offices six weeks after winning the election. It finished announcing them in the eleventh week following his election victory.[22] It also took Clinton particularly long to name a White House Chief of Staff, with him waiting until mid-December before naming Mack McLarty.[20]
Clinton spent great amounts of time during the transition devising plans with an intimate group of confidantes, including his wife Hillary, vice-president-electAl Gore, and transition director Warren Christopher.[4] Much of these discussions were had in the study of the Arkansas Governor's Mansion.[16] Clinton deeply involved himself with the details of his new presidential administration, especially the selection of members of his Cabinet.[4] Clinton's wife was also heavily involved in making staffing decisions for his Cabinet.[4] Both Clinton and his wife had interest in making his cabinet have increased racial diversity and more women members than past cabinets.[4] Clinton himself had declared the goal of choosing a Cabinet that, "looks like America".[23] The Clintons' decision to be so deeply involved in personnel decisions contributed to the delay in naming individuals to the positions.[4]
In contrast to his deep involvement with Cabinet staffing decisions, Clinton paid comparatively little attention to many staffing decisions for his White House staff.[4][20] Clinton would later write in his autobiographyMy Life that he had, "spent so much time on the cabinet," that he, "hardly spent any time on the White House staff".[24] Clinton also avoided appointing White House insiders to his administrations, making few hires of individuals that had served in the administration of the last Democratic president, Jimmy Carter.[4] Clinton appeared to demonstrate possible hostility towards hiring Washington insiders.[4] Consequentially, many of his White House hires were of individuals that had worked on his campaign, but who were largely young and lacked government experience.[4] The transition also failed to heed the advice of the outgoing Bush administration to name members of his White House staff early into his transition.[4] While Clinton refrained from hiring many veterans of past administrations, his transition team did meet for advice with members of past Democratic administrations, particularly those of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter.[11]
Clinton had roughly 4,000 executive branch positions to make appointments to, in addition to setting a budget and political agenda.[1]
Officially heading personnel selection was Richard Riley. However, after Riley was named to be Clinton's choice for Secretary of Education, he found his attention divided between his role in the transition and preparing for his pending position in the presidential administration.[4][25]
Clinton throughout his transition, made clear that he understood that, until January 20, the country had a singular president, George H. W. Bush.[26] As the inauguration came close, Bush's advisers had begun working with Clinton's advisors, particularly on foreign policy, to ensure that there would be a smooth transfer of power. For instance, for weeks before the inauguration, Brent Scowcroft, Bush's National Security Advisor, would meet daily with Anthony Lake, who Clinton had designated to be his National Security Advisor.[26]
In December, Clinton was a participant in a televised economic summit in Little Rock. While this provided an opportunity for the president-elect to display his policy knowledge, the summit also took up valuable time during a crucial stage of his transition.[4][27]
A scandal arose about Clinton's choice for Attorney General, Zoe Baird, having failed to pay taxes for domestic servants that had been in the country illegally. The scandal became known as "Nannygate".[28] Baird's nomination would ultimately end up being withdrawn the day after Clinton's inauguration.[4]
Iraq crisis
Beginning roughly two weeks before Bush was to hand power over to Clinton, perhaps seeking to take advantage of the possible hesitancy of Bush to respond right before the end of the transition, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein began engaging in brinksmanship. In response, on January 13, 1993, Bush ordered a limited airstrike on Iraq. In the days before the airstrike, Clinton received detailed briefings on the situation. Bush's national security advisors spoke with the men Clinton had designated to be his when he took office. President Bush called Clinton an hour before the airstrike to inform him of the decision. While the airstrike was ultimately Bush's decision, a top Bush administration official claimed that Clinton and his own national security advisors had been "partners in the deliberations" over the airstrike. Clinton said that the airstrike was, "the right decision, done in the right way."[26][29][30][31]
Analysis of transition
The transition has been considered chaotic, in some respects.[4][20] In 2001, Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution called the transition, "downright chaotic".[23] In 2008, Dan Brillman of Newsweek characterized the transition as "clumsy" as well as "unfocused and undisciplined".[24] Clinton's press secretary Dee Dee Myers would later call the transition period "hell".[24]
Colin Luther Powell was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who was the 65th United States secretary of state from 2001 to 2005. He was the first Black secretary of state. He was the 15th United States national security advisor from 1987 to 1989, and the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
James Addison Baker III is an American attorney, diplomat and statesman. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 10th White House Chief of Staff and 67th United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan and the 61st U.S. Secretary of State before returning as the 16th White House Chief of Staff under President George H. W. Bush.
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The presidential transition of Barack Obama began when he won the United States presidential election on November 4, 2008, and became the president-elect. Obama was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 15, 2008. The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 8, 2009, and the transition ended when Obama was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 2009.
Thomas Edward Donilon is an American lawyer, business executive, and former government official who served as the 22nd National Security Advisor in the Obama administration from 2010 to 2013. Donilon also worked in the Carter and Clinton administrations, including as chief of staff of the U.S. State Department. He is now Chairman of the BlackRock Investment Institute, the firm's global think tank.
Planning for the presidential transition of Donald Trump, led by then vice president-elect, former governor Mike Pence of Indiana, began before Donald Trump won the United States presidential election on November 8, 2016, and became the president-elect. Trump was formally elected by the Electoral College on December 19, 2016. The transition was formerly led by Chris Christie until he and a number of his supporters were replaced or demoted on November 11. The results were certified by a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2017, and the transition ended when Trump was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 2017.
The presidential transition of George W. Bush took place following the 2000 United States presidential election. It started after Bush was declared the victor of the election on December 12, 2000, when the Bush v. Gore decision by the Supreme Court halted the election recount in Florida, making Bush the victor in that state. The decision delivered him the state's 25 electoral votes, thus giving him a total of 271 electoral votes. This was one more vote than the 270 needed to win the presidency outright, making him president-elect.
The presidential transition of Joe Biden began on November 7, 2020, and ended on January 20, 2021. Unlike previous presidential transitions, which normally take place during the roughly 10-week period between the election in the first week of November and the inauguration on January 20, Biden's presidential transition was shortened somewhat because the General Services Administration under the outgoing Trump administration did not recognize Biden as the "apparent winner" until November 23.
Hartina M. "Tina" Flournoy is an American political advisor who served as chief of staff to vice president Kamala Harris from 2021 to 2022.
The presidential transition of George H. W. Bush began when then-Vice President Bush won the United States 1988 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Bush was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1989.
The presidential transition of Ronald Reagan began when he won the 1980 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Reagan was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1981.
The presidential transition of Jimmy Carter began when he won the 1976 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Carter was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1977.
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The presidential transition of John F. Kennedy began when he won the 1960 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Kennedy was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1961.
The 1992 presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush was an unsuccessful re-election campaign for 1992 United States presidential election by incumbent president George H. W. Bush, who had taken office on January 20, 1989. Bush and incumbent vice president Dan Quayle were defeated by Democratic presidential nominee Bill Clinton and vice presidential nominee Al Gore. Bush, a Republican president and former vice president under Ronald Reagan, launched his presidential bid on October 11, 1991 and secured nomination for his re-election on August 20, 1992. He was challenged in the Republican primaries by former White House Communications Director Pat Buchanan, who received less than one percent of the delegates in the Convention.
The presidential transition of Dwight D. Eisenhower began when he won the United States 1952 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Eisenhower was inaugurated at noon EST on January 20, 1953.
↑ Burke, John P. (2004). Becoming President: The Bush Transition, 2000-2003. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers. p.19. ISBN1-58826-292-8.
1 2 3 Rankin, Robert A.; Bennett, Susan (14 Jan 1993). "Bush, Clinton stand as one". Newspapers.com. Tallahassee Democrat. Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau.
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