President Herbert Hoover and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt failed to cooperate in any matter during the four-month transition that occurred in the midst of the Great Depression. Eric Rauchway, an expert on the New Deal and the Progressive Era, shared his expertise on how Roosevelt utilized his time between the election and the inauguration to set in motion one of the most successful presidencies in American history despite Hoover’s unwillingness to ease the way. 

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David Marchick asked historian Eric Rauchway why he chose to write about the Hoover-Roosevelt transition. 

Rauchway: “I became persuaded that this hundred or so days before Roosevelt took the oath of office were actually as important as the much more famous hundred days that came after. In fact, the previous hundred days really paved the way for that burst of legislative activity that happened upon his coming into office.” 


MarchickAt the Partnership for Public Service, we focus on effectiveness in government, and we would advise the outgoing administration to work cooperatively with the incoming administration, much like George W. Bush did with Barack Obama during the financial crisis of 2008. So what happened with Hoover and Roosevelt? Did they cooperate with each other? 

Rauchway: “No, they really didn’t. Of course, your advice, which is excellent advice for outgoing and incoming chief executives, assumes that both parties regard the transfer of power as legitimate. In this case in 1932 and 1933, Herbert Hoover fundamentally regarded the proposed New Deal FDR had campaigned on as an illegitimate use of presidential and federal power, and something that he wanted to stop as much as he possibly could. 

“It’s fair to say certainly that Hoover probably never really liked Franklin Roosevelt. He said, ‘I had no use for that man after 15 years of acquaintance.’ Which kind of tips you off. 

“Although they weren’t that far off in age…Roosevelt’s youthful demeanor made him seem a lot younger than he was. Hoover thought of him as callow and immature. And frankly, Herbert Hoover wasn’t the only one. Roosevelt had a definite sense of humor that I think today we would identify as being kind of trollish.” 


Reflecting on similarities between the Great Depression and the today’s economic crisis, Rauchway noted: 

“I think that one of the things that the pandemic and the shutdown (of economic activity) have revealed is that there are big structural inequalities in the United States that have been unaddressed for a long period of time. That is a point where we do have important parallels with the United States in 1932, 1933. The Depression also revealed the thinness of the boom years of the 1920s and how many sectors of American life really hadn’t benefited from that sort of superficial prosperity.” 


Rauchway explained how FDR used the transition period between his election in 1932 and his inauguration ion 1933 to prepare to govern.  

“He (Roosevelt) goes to his vacation house in Warm Springs, Georgia, where he meets a whole bunch of various Democrats and liberal Republicans and starts to marshal ways of putting through the legislation that he had promised during the campaign: legislation to relieve farmers, legislation to build dams at public expense and operate them to produce hydroelectric power…, legislation that’s friendly to unions, legislation that’s going to push forward what we would now call a sort of “pro-welfare state” like unemployment insurance and Social Security.  

“He begins to take advice from experts, politicians and industry leaders over how best to do those things. He sends up trial balloons. He tries to get… people in his party and sympathetic members of the Republican Party on his side. He begins to put together a Cabinet that is shaped with those policies in mind and in deference to the kinds of constituencies that he thinks will support him.” 

By Amelia Ziegler

Mack McLarty, former White House chief of staff, shared insights on the Clinton transition as well as President Clinton’s first year in office, as well as the privilege of serving alongside the president, a friend from childhood. 

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Dave Marchick asked about the importance of President Clinton’s economic stimulus package, the hallmark legislation of his first year in office, that decreased the deficit and laid the foundation for his presidency. 

Mack McLarty “There’s no question that President Clinton’s economic plan was the pillar, the foundation of his first year in office. That’s what the campaign had been about, and that’s what he had been focused on both in the campaign and the White House.” 

“I think the other point that was so important the first year was for President Clinton to step onto the world stage in a confident, statesman-like manner. We really worked at that. If you go back to the first year and really through his entire presidency, (he) established enduring, deep relationships with leaders around the world and that served him well.” 


McLarty reflects on Bill Clinton’s hesitancy toward robust pre-election transition planning.  

Clinton “did not want to be seen as…a candidate who was already beginning to measure the drapes in the Oval Office. So, his instinct, his inclination was not to have a robust, focused transition…There was a (pre-election) transition group that was formed…I never sensed or felt that the candidate really focused.”

McLarty acknowledges that the Clinton team may have erred by choosing Cabinet members before many of his top White House staff. 

“You either have to do them [choose the White House staff and the Cabinet] simultaneously – or perhaps even better, focus on the White House staff first and then quickly move to the Cabinet. But there was just not enough work done before the election. And once you get behind, you just don’t have room to catch up.”

McLarty shares insights on what the team could have done differently with respect to the transition. 

“Well, hindsight is a no great substitute for wisdom. I think more fundamentally, the real answer is to begin the transition process planning much earlier in a very formal way…Spend some time and focus on the elements of a transition, including at least a framework for personnel.”


Dave Marchick asked how McLarty dealt with the pressure of being White House chief of staff. 

Mack McLarty: “It was a demanding period…There’s nothing like working in the White House, and particularly as the chief of staff, you really have to keep a sense of perspective about what you’re trying to accomplish, why you came to Washington and do your best to keep your eye on the prize…You really try to remember the mission, why you went there to serve the American people.”


Dave Marchick asked what McLarty wishes he had known before he became White House chief of staff. 

Mack McLarty: “A lot. I think a formal transition planning well in advance of the election is just absolutely imperative, both from a national security standpoint and from an economic security standpoint. That’s obviously one I wish I would have known.  Secondly, there’s no question that in politics – and particularly in the first year of any presidency – perception is reality. I think you’ve got to really be focused, serious and thoughtful about how you keep your message in front of the American, and people in the world, more broadly.”

Filmmaker Ken Burns and historian Geoffrey Ward have captured American history by collaborating on documentaries like “The Civil War” and “The Roosevelts.” The two shared stories with Transition Lab about the biggest crises in our nation’s history – from the Civil War to the Great Depression to Vietnam – and how our past informs the present. 

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Read the highlights and our feature in Axios:

Dave Marchick: Is there a historical corollary to today?  

Geoffrey Ward: “I’m always a little uneasy with parallels, but I suppose 1933 is certainly one and 1861 is the other, and I think this is the third.” 

Ken Burns: This crisis (pandemic) is on the level of the Second World War, but particularly the Depression and the Civil War. As Lincoln predicted, the danger didn’t come from without, but from within, and now that’s literally medically, epidemiologically true, but also politically and socially true as well. So this is as great a crisis as we’ve had. 

Dave Marchick: Based on your read as historians, should we be optimistic, pessimistic or should we be just downright depressed today?  

Ken Burns: We have the opportunity here to press a kind of reset button about our values. And so as a student of history and a storyteller, I feel always optimistic, but I am not Pollyannaish. I know that there are great threats and great difficulties at any moment, and we are filled with opportunity as much as we are filled with threat. And it is my fervent hope that we Americans choose the path towards finding a way to have a reset in a very new and spectacular way. 

Dave Marchick: Ken, we were talking earlier this week and I was lamenting how presidential transitions are never perfect. They always have problems. And you had a more optimistic view? 

Ken Burns: “Let’s step back a little bit and celebrate that since 1797 when George Washington gave up the presidency and John Adams took over, we have had an unbroken succession of presidential administrations. No troops have been alerted. Nobody’s fought and said, ‘No.’ They may have gone unhappily, but they’ve gone…We created a government unbelievably imperfect in its scope and understanding and yet (we’ve) been able to hand off the ball without a single fumble. That’s amazing. Let’s celebrate that.” 


Kens Burns reflected on leadership during a time of crisis 

Ken Burns: “Both of them (Lincoln and Roosevelt) made huge and glaring mistakes, but a sign of their leadership was their willingness to accept those mistakes, to acknowledge them publicly,  to take the blame, to have the buck stop with them and to move on and try something else…The greatest measure of leadership is, ‘Are you part of the solution or are you part of the problem?” 


Ken Burns shared his view on how our history and geography have shaped American ideology. 

“He [Lincoln] understood that the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean, and two relatively benign neighbors North and South, insulated the United States in ways that no other country has ever been insulated…No matter how much the Germans were trying, they weren’t going to cross over and make a Normandy like landing in Montauk…The Japanese were not going to make a beachhead on the West Coast and move in to take over the United States. Unfortunately, the things that it incubates that are positive, like freedom and this kind of curiousness and restlessness and entrepreneurial spirit, have kind of concurrent, darker side…We love more than anything else that kind of division between things. I think as we look across the expanse of American history, people have come in, great leaders have come in and either been able to tame, or they have exacerbated that.”  

Professor Michael Nelson, an expert on the American presidency, joins Transition Lab to discuss the political dynamics that define a president’s first and second term. Nelson explains how new presidents can maximize their impact during their first year in office and outlines the challenges two-term presidents face during their fifth year. 

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In reflecting on the Clinton Administration and insights from his book, “Clinton’s Elections: 1992, 1996, and the Birth of a New Era of Governance,” Nelson noted: 

“[Clinton] was often stumbling through much of that first year. Clinton is somebody who has a vast capacity to learn from experience, and in particular, learn from his mistakes. In some ways, that’s the best quality a first-year president can have, because you have never done this job or a job quite like it.” 


Dave: Looking back on modern presidential history, what, which president would you say had the most significant or consequential first year? And why?” 

Michael: “That’s a great question, and I’ll answer it in two ways. If you look at which recent president had the most consequential first year in terms of accomplishing what he said during the campaign, that would be Ronald Reagan who managed to get through a democratic Congress. [He passed] a massive tax cut, reductions in domestic spending, a massive increase in defense spending, which were exactly the things they had talked about during the campaign. His first year worked out in a way that fulfilled the expectations that he brought to the office.  

“No president was caught more off guard by virtue of preparation than George W. Bush with 9/11. He had run for office on domestic issues. He had spent the first seven or eight months of his presidency focusing on domestic issues: tax cuts, education and so on. And then boom, two planes crashed into the world trade center in New York. Another point crashes into the Pentagon. And as he realized almost instantaneously, I’m a wartime president and this is what my presidency is going to be about.” 


Nelson explained his interest in second terms, noting that, 

Michael: “It’s really hard to think of any, perhaps not any, presidents who have served two terms and whose second terms have been as successful as their first. And that’s not to say no president has had a successful second term. But in almost every case, maybe in every case, there’s been a falloff in performance. So why is that? Especially given that the president has now had four years of experience in the office, what is it about second terms that usually leads to a falling off and performance? 

Dave: Why is that? What is unique about the challenges that a second term president faces? 

Michael: “I think in some ways, the seeds of second term disappointment are sowed in the campaign for reelection. So, if you’re a president running for a second term, basically you have two plays in the playbook. One is to turn it into a referendumif you liked my first term, a vote for me again. The other is to turn it into a choice, meaning if you haven’t particularly liked my first term, the guy who’s running against me would be even worse. Those are the two plays in the playbook. Neither one of them is really laying the foundation for a second term agenda. 

Director of the White House Transition Project, Martha Kumar discusses the history of presidential transitions. Kumar outlines how the Presidential Transition Act changed transition planning, the importance of White House design for a successful first year in office and talks about the best—and worst—presidential transitions. 

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Dave: What advice do you have for secondterm planning? 

Martha: It’s important to think through what you want in the second term, because second terms have not been historically successful. Think about how it gives you an opportunity for a new start and what kinds of items you can actually get passed.” 

“The second term is very different than the first because in the first term you have a new agenda lined up as you come in. In a second term, you’re basically left with leftovers from the first administration of things you couldn’t get through.”


Dave: The transition used to be much longer. The election was held in November, and presidents used to be inaugurated in March. But in 1933, that law changed, and Eisenhower was the first president who had a shortened transition [with his inauguration] in January. Now, it’s about 73, 74 days. Why was that transition period shortened?  

Martha: The transition period shortened, one, because travel and information are moving much faster now. With the kind of vulnerabilities that you have in the period of changing presidents, it’s important that it‘s long enough to get policy and personnel in order, but not too long. In fact, if you look at President George W. Bush, his transition was only 37 days, but they had done so much work beforehand preparing for it that they were able to come in and have a very smooth beginning. 

Andrew Card, chief of staff to President George W. Bush and deputy chief of staff to President George H.W. Bush, shares his perspective on the surprisingly challenging “friendly” transition from President Reagan to President George H. W. Bush. Card shares insights from his distinguished career in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush Administrations.

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Dave: One of the challenges of the Reagan to H.W. Bush transition was how Bush put his own stamp on the presidency. Reagan was an incredibly popular president, a strong president. He revolutionized the Republican party, but Bush had to show that he was different. How did you do that? And what are the key things that President Bush did early on to say this will be a different tone, a different presidency, a different approach?

Andrew: “It started with George H.W. Bush, who recognized that he didn’t have the same personality as Ronald Reagan. He wasn’t the same kind of communicator as Ronald Reagan. And the world was also different. George H.W. Bush has got the greatest resume of anyone who’s ever been president, but it’s a resume grounded in relationships and relationships developed through his years at the UN, or as Envoy to China, or CIA director, or Chairman of the Republican Party or Vice President. Whereas Ronald Reagan’s was kind of built by a celebrity status and great communications, the ability to translate political jargon into common everyday language. I think George H.W. Bush recognized he wasn’t Ronald Reagan. He agreed with Ronald Reagan on most of the policy aspects, but he wasn’t Ronald Reagan. He was going to have a different style to his government.”


Dave: So, George H.W. Bush was vice president and he was a candidate for president. How much time did he actually spend on the transition and how often did the transition team brief him or meet with him?

Andrew: “Most of American history has had transitions centered around hostile takeovers: my candidate lost, your candidate won and it’s a different party. This was a friendly takeover, so we had the added burden of managing the expectations of people working for President Reagan who just assumed if George Bush got elected president that they would stay in their job… But candidly, the campaign was so focused on the campaign, they were not spending a lot of time thinking about the transition. It was kind of left [to] the day after the election.”


Contrasting “friendly” takeovers, where the outgoing and incoming presidents are of the same party, and “hostile” takeovers, where the two are of different parties, Card noted:

“The friendly takeover has the expectation from people who are working on ‘the same team’ that they’re going to continue to work on the same team. In a hostile takeover, everybody understands there’s a new sheriff in town. This creates expectations that things are going to change, including people… I ran the transition out when there was a hostile takeover when Bill Clinton came in and George H.W. Bush was leaving office… obviously the vast majority of people, according to the Clinton incoming team, would be to resign. It was surprising how many people, including cabinet members, said, ‘No, no, I’ll just wait until they remove me. I’m not planning to leave.’ And President Bush said, ‘No I promised I would clear the decks, we’ll clear the decks.’ It was much easier to do that in the context of a hostile takeover than a friendly one where the conversations were very different.”


Dave: There was a tough election [in 1992], the country wanted change. Since then, the country and history has shown a much more favorable light on George H.W. Bush. What do you think his biggest legacy will be?

Andrew: “His biggest legacy I think is that he was a decent man and truly respected by people who didn’t agree with him. He worked very very hard at not practicing braggadocio. It was never about him. He was a very, very humble leader. He had remarkable relationships on Capitol Hill, on both sides of the aisle. He had the ability to forget who his enemies were, and he would see them as friends.”


Dave: What would you advise the Trump people to be doing now to think about a potential second term?

Andrew: “Well, I think it’s very important that you not [wait to] start your planning for a second term until after you’ve won the right to have the second term. If you wait that long to start your planning, you’ll probably be about six months late before you can implement it.


Four-star Admiral James Stavridis and former General Motors CEO Dan Akerson distinguished themselves as exceptional leaders during times of crisis.  Join us on Transition Lab to learn how effective leaders operate during times of uncertainty. Stavridis and Akerson discuss how public and private sector leaders can navigate the challenges posed by the coronavirus.   

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Dave: “What is the size and scope of the COVID-19 crisis?”

Admiral Stavridis: “This is the biggest crisis the nation has faced since the second world war, and that’s going back over 70 years. I think the only way I can categorize it from relatively recent life events from the 21st century, is that this combines the worst of the 2008 financial crisis with 9/11. In that sense, this is a dagger pointed at the heart of the U.S. and global economy.”


Dave: “What attributes do the best leaders possess in times of crisis?” 

Admiral Staviridis: “[The leadership skills] I’ve found that transferred seamlessly [from military to business] are two very basic things that are effectively the same: a sense of integrity and the need for honesty. At the Navel Academy, we have an honor code: we don’t lie, cheat or steal. I think that’s a basic framework, but leaders know that they have to have that bedrock of integrity… 

Secondly, the ability to communicate, to take an idea and inspire others, is both a technical skill – to think and speak, present well – but also a creative skill, taking what you’ve come up with and moving it across a wide frame. 

Thirdly, both in the military and the business world, innovation is critical. Steve Jobs, who knew a lot about innovation… He said that, ‘the difference between leaders and followers is the ability to innovate.’ And I think that is true. It was true for me in the military when I changed the command structure of U.S. Southern Command… you have to be able to innovate.”

Dan Akerson: “Integrity is absolutely critical to being an effective leader. People are going to watch how you conduct yourself in good times and bad when the pressure is on and not.”  


Stephanie Cutter, spokesperson for the Obama-Biden transition in 2008 and nationally recognized communications strategist, shares her perspective on managing the Obama-Biden transition during the global financial crisis. Cutter shares how the communications team positioned then president-elect Barack Obama in the public eye, how the team approached the economic crisis and how they managed the period from election to Inauguration Day.  

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Dave: What advice would you give to whomever the next spokesperson is for a transition? What are the most important things that person should think about before he or she takes on the role?   

Cutter: Well, the biggest is that you’re no longer on the campaign. You are a government. It is the highest office in the land. It is an office people revere across the world and you show it some respect. So take off your campaign hat and put on your governing hat and think about the long term, not the short term.


Dave: In every campaign there’s a mind shift when someone goes from candidate to being president-elect, where people say, “Wow, this person’s actually going to be president.” And part of the challenge is to communicate to the American public that this person’s going to be president. So how do you do that? What were you thinking about from a communications perspective?   

Cutter: Well remember, part of the threshold that we had to get over for Obama as a candidate was to show him as a president. He was relatively unknown—a new senator, so we had been working on that for a long time. We were also in the middle of an economic crisis. And throughout that fall, there were lots of moments to show leadership and control over the situation to give people confidence. And we took full advantage of that—for good reason. But moving from a campaign into a transition mode—he was the president-elect, so, you want to communicate that you’re moving quickly to set up a government confidently and competently. 


Dave: So the day after the election, Bush was incredibly gracious to Obama, rolled out the red carpet and there was cooperation and collaboration between the two. This is after a year and a half of basically running against Bush. How did the campaign team shift that paradigm?  

Cutter: It was a huge adjustment. We had to be very careful with our comments and what we were putting out there because we were working so closely in cooperation with them, and they were being extraordinarily helpful to us because of the economic crisis that we were in. As soon as you move from a campaign to a transition, out goes the campaign rhetoric. It’s not Bush’s economy this and failure that, it’s what are we going to do? It’s looking to the future. It’s putting real plans in place. It’s putting the people that are going to be shepherding those plans in place and frankly, we had enough to deal with on our own. There was no time to think about, “Oh, well, remember this positioning on the campaign of Obama versus Bush,” we had much bigger things to think about.   


Dave: So as we approached the inauguration, Obama became much more active as a spokesperson. What was your strategy for increasing the intensity of his communications as you approached the inauguration?  

Cutter: You know, once we became more comfortable in that transition role, it’s very difficult to go dark… So somebody needed to communicate confidence. Somebody needed to reassure people that we collectively—the Bush White House, the Bush administration, the transition team and president-elect had this under control.  

Author Michael Lewis shares insights on the coronavirus pandemic and stories from “The Fifth Risk.” Lewis discusses the critical role federal employees play in managing the crisis, and his advice for presidential transition teams. Lewis also outlines the importance of effective government management, both in times of crisis and times of normalcy, and why we need to rethink what we’re told about the career officials running our federal government. 

Listen, rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn.

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Dave: “When you were writing about government workers, it seems like a boring subject to write about – people that work in the government. There are stereotypes about them as bureaucrats and slow-moving. What were your observations when you met people that were longtime career federal officials?”  

Michael: “They were extraordinarily mission-driven, extraordinarily focused, passionate about the things they cared about. They were all moving and important characters, and easy to make a swing on the page because they cared so much about something that mattered so much, to which much of the country was completely indifferent or oblivious. I thought of them as our greatest patriots. It was as if you had a military that was off fighting and dying in a war without anybody acknowledging it.”


Dave: “Having written a whole book about transition, you’ve spent a large chunk of time on it. What advice would you have for the Biden or Sanders team on what they should be doing and how seriously they should take a transition planning effort?”  

Michael: “It should be the number one priority, especially given what we’re living with now and what crisis might emerge between now and then… The biggest thing you’re being handed right now is this giant toolbox. A lot of the tools are broken, some of the tools are missing. But it’s all you’ve got. You can fill that toolbox up pretty quickly if you’re ready to go on day one, so the advice I would give them makes it a huge priority. No partisan litmus tests, the filter is not are you Democrat or Republican. The filter is, do you know what you’re talking about? Do you understand the subject? Do you have management ability?”  


Lewis emphasized the importance of federal employees and the expertise they bring to their jobs.  

“If you think you know what a federal government worker is, maybe you think again. When you actually meet the people doing the jobs, you think, ‘Thank God they’re there.’” 

Admiral Thad Allen talks about his experience leading the U.S. response to some of the most challenging modern crises. Named the “Master of Disaster” by TIME Magazine, Allen discusses the coronavirus pandemic and how to find calm in times of panic. 

Listen, rate and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn.

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Dave: “Our work at the Partnership is focused on effectiveness in government and smooth political transitions. In your view, were our political leaders and our government ready for this crisis and where they prepare to implement the emergency response?”  

The admiral noted the critical role that career federal employees play in preparing for any crisis, and shared insights on how the political polarization of the country effects disaster preparedness.  

Admiral Allen: “The thing that has bothered me, and it’s bothered me for almost three decades now, is the more bifurcated and politicized we become as a nation, the more we’ve started to lose the dividing line between what’s a campaign and what’s governing. And when you try and run an operational response to a disaster or a crisis, and you confuse that with campaigning, you run the risk of failing of both.”  


Dave: “One of the challenges that you dealt with, and that I think President Trump and others are dealing with today, is the different responsibilities. The federal government may lead the effort, but really the States have all the resources and the responsibility on the ground. How do you balance the roles of the federal government, the States and the cities? And how do you get everybody lined up? Clearly today, all the governors, mayors and others who are delivering direct responses to the people in the coronavirus crisis are on different pages than the president.”  

Admiral Allen: “I’ve said many times that each one of these events, and especially the one we’re dealing with right now, becomes an exercise in applied civics and sometimes we end up load testing the Constitution and whatever the basic authorities mean. I always start with the 10th Amendment, which basically says that all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states and specifically disaster response, police powers, health and sanitation and those types of things are a state responsibility. The question is how you move beyond that if the problem exceeds the ability of the state to respond to, and that’s done usually through a disaster or an emergency declaration that allows the federal government to come into assist.”  


Admiral Allen gave thanks to the Partnership for enabling continuity of government and effectiveness among career federal employees.  

Admiral Allen: “I have to give kudos to the Partnership for Public Service, what they’ve been doing for the past several transitions, a continuity of government that’s not continuity of policy and things that are subject to change by the will of the people, by electing people, but the continuity of government and the ability to maintain essential services has to be understood and respected by anybody that’s running for office. And it has to be depoliticized. It can’t be an immediate referendum on loyalty across two administrations.”