Peter Baker

The difficulty with the interregnum, as I have written about, is shown in this article.


I Do Solemnly . . .
Waiting to Lead (or Not)
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new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/weekinreview/28baker.html

By PETER BAKER
Published: September 27, 2008
The winter before Franklin D. Roosevelt took office was among the darkest periods of the Great Depression. With bank runs threatening a fragile financial system, Herbert Hoover tried to recruit his successor to sign a joint declaration closing the banks. The president-elect brushed him off. Two days after Roosevelt was sworn in, he ordered the very bank holiday Hoover had proposed.
Perhaps it was appropriate, then, that 75 years later the White House hosted another awkward political dance of once and future leaders in the face of a crushing economic crisis. This time there were three not-quite presidents sitting at the table in the Cabinet Room — one who still technically has the job but can’t get anyone to listen, and two others who have everyone’s undivided attention but don’t yet have the job.
The session with President Bush, Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama illustrated just how much power at the top of the nation’s political hierarchy has already fragmented, leaving a leadership void that complicated the path to consensus last week over the deepening turmoil on Wall Street. If Mr. Bush thought summoning the two major-party nominees would neatly yield bipartisan agreement behind his proposed $700 billion bailout, he quickly learned how steep that climb is with an election around the corner.
What is left, though, is uncertainty about whom to follow. “There’s no leadership; nobody’s leading,” said Pat Caddell, who was an adviser to President Jimmy Carter. “The country’s not looking to him to lead,” he said of Mr. Bush. “And the Congress couldn’t lead an Easter egg hunt.”
The problem for Mr. Bush is that he has all the levers of the Oval Office without all of the authority. Even some of his own advisers concede that the country long ago tuned him out, and last week’s revolt by House Republicans against his initial economic plan demonstrated his trouble asserting command even of his own party. As Ed Rollins, the White House political director under Ronald Reagan, put it cruelly but crisply on CNN on Friday: “This isn’t a lame-duck administration. This is a dead-duck administration.”
If Mr. Bush’s remaining time in office is short, though, it is not that short. Mr. Obama at one point referred to himself or Mr. McCain as “the person who in approximately 40 days will be responsible for dealing with this mess.” Not quite. As of last week, Mr. Bush still had four months left in office, and even after the Nov. 4 election, Mr. Obama or Mr. McCain will be left to hover until Inauguration Day.
So what is the right role in the meantime for a president in waiting? Mr. McCain chose the head-on approach, suspending his campaign briefly to return to Washington, ostensibly to help forge a deal. That worked for him a few weeks ago when he effectively canceled the opening night of his nominating convention and, looking presidential, headed to New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav bore down.
Mr. Obama took a more hands-off approach, attending the White House meeting and offering views of the bailout without asserting himself as de facto leader. If this is Mr. Bush’s mess, Mr. Obama seems willing to let the departing president keep ownership of it. And Mr. Obama is acutely aware that inheriting a $700 billion commitment might cripple his ability to advance his own domestic agenda.
This sense of uncertain leadership has arisen repeatedly in American history, but usually after a presidential election when the next leader has actually been anointed rather than before, as now. The interregnum between Hoover and Roosevelt offers an interesting case study given the financial tumult now confronting the nation.
Roosevelt did not want to take responsibility for Hoover’s problems or his proposals and wanted the country to perceive a sharp break when he took over, even if he would ultimately adopt some of the same strategies for arresting the Depression. Hoover repeatedly reached out to Roosevelt to present a united front after the 1932 election, only to be ignored or rebuffed.
Hoover made a final, futile effort on the eve of the March 1933 inauguration to get Roosevelt’s support for a bank holiday. “Like hell I will,” Roosevelt replied, according to Jonathan Alter in his book “The Defining Moment: F.D.R.’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope.” “If you haven’t the guts to do it yourself, I’ll wait until I’m president to do it.”
Hoover was so angry that he did not speak to Roosevelt during their ride to the Inauguration the next day. Roosevelt then went ahead and ordered a four-day bank closure on his own and went out of his way to keep Hoover in exile for years, even though their two staffs ultimately collaborated on some economic programs.
“Hoover really wanted F.D.R. to be involved and be more active in struggling with the Great Depression,” said John P. Burke, a University of Vermont scholar and author of books on presidential transitions. “It’s a question of distancing yourself from a past administration, particularly if it’s from a different party. I think F.D.R. didn’t want to get enchained by any type of policies coming out of the Hoover administration.”
Roosevelt was hardly alone. Abraham Lincoln essentially kept silent as Southern states peeled away from the Union after he won election in 1860 but before he was sworn in, choosing to leave it to the incumbent to handle until Inauguration Day. “There was a lot of pressure on Lincoln to say something and make his will felt,” said Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has written biographies of both Lincoln and Roosevelt. “But he, too, felt it was very important to wait till he got there to do it his own way even though some people felt it was irresponsible not to say anything.”
The transition period in Lincoln’s and Roosevelt’s day dragged on far longer than it does today, a relic of the years when travel depended on the horse-drawn carriage. After the interminable gap between Roosevelt’s election and Inauguration, the Constitution was changed to move up the beginning of the new president’s term from March 4 to Jan. 20.
Even so, the country has endured uncomfortable overlaps between outgoing and incoming presidents in moments of difficulty. Lyndon B. Johnson was desperately trying to get North Vietnam to the negotiating table right before the 1968 elections, but Richard M. Nixon’s camp sabotaged that by persuading South Vietnam not to participate. Jimmy Carter was desperately trying to get Iran to release American hostages before the 1980 election, and some Democrats have promoted theories about involvement by Reagan supporters.
Edwin Meese III, a longtime Reagan hand who served as counselor and attorney general, said their camp stayed out of the Iran crisis, which ended in split-screen drama as the hostages were released just as the new president was inaugurated. “We made clear to everybody that Carter was the president and would remain president until Jan. 20,” Mr. Meese said. The Reagan camp’s only involvement, he said, was to pass along a message to Iran that “they would not expect any better from Ronald Reagan than they would get from President Carter.”
But to say “not me yet” gets a future president only so far. Voters, activists, the news media and other politicians expect leadership, as Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama saw last week. “The next president will be the person who really imposes the deal” rescuing financial institutions, said Ron Kaufman, who was a top aide to President George H. W. Bush. “You almost have to have them in the room. It wasn’t even a close call.”
Moreover, both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama are sitting senators who have a role to play beyond their presidential aspirations. And let’s face it, given the complexity of building an administration, both campaigns already have begun transition planning in case they win. In 2000, Dick Cheney opened a transition office outside Washington and began picking top appointees before the Supreme Court ruling that effectively made George W. Bush’s victory official.
For a president in waiting, though, there is risk in looking too much like, well, a president in waiting. Mr. Obama learned that last summer when Republicans mocked him for his faux presidential seal, the “O Force One” nickname for his plane and the much-covered trip to the Middle East and Europe, capped by his speech in Berlin. At one point, it looked as if Mr. Obama was effectively reaching agreement with Iraqi leaders about troop withdrawals.
Of course in the end, cutting a deal with the Iraqis may be easier than cutting a deal with your fellow not-quite presidents.
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to the room at the White House where President Bush met with the presidential candidates and other lawmakers to discuss the financial rescue plan. It was the Cabinet Room, not the Roosevelt Room.