I wanted to check everyone’s availability for two upcoming meetings.  I have spoken with most of you informally about these but I wanted to double back to get confirmation on each meeting.  Please reply to me with your availability for each.  Thanks.

1)      Denver meeting, Monday, August 25, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  We could probably shift it a bit if it doesn’t work for everyone, but it would be better to do it first thing in the AM before the week gets busy. 

2)      All-day meeting in D.C. on Tuesday, Sept. 2.

--

Adam Hitchcock

Obama for America

ahitchcock@barackobama.com

1)      The economic policy work plan, submitted by Josh Steiner.

2)      A recap of John and Melody’s meeting at the White House.

Just a reminder, we’re scheduled for our regular 9:30 a.m. Eastern call tomorrow (Friday).   Here’s the call in information:

Phone #: 712-432-9998

Passcode: 690730

As mentioned on this morning’s call, please contact your donors and encourage them to send in their checks.   Attached is the contribution form that they will need to complete.  So as not to harass those donors who have already given, I’ll provide you with a weekly list of who’s given.  This week we’ve gotten checks from:

Frank Brosens

Tom Wheeler

Eric Mindich

John’s assistant asked me to send this information around about John’s book party in Denver.  You can email your RSVP to Juliana Gendelman (jgendelman@americanprogress.org) or to the email address below.  Guests are welcome.

1)     Denver meeting – Courtesy of Federico’s assistant Renee, we will be meeting in the office of Vestar Capital Partners, 1225 17^th St. in Denver (303-292-6300).  Vestar’s office is on the 16^th floor, but the conference room we’re using is on the 24^th floor.  Vestar is located in the Seventeenth Street Plaza building, between 17th & 18th and Lawrence & Larimer Streets in Downtown Denver.  In front of the building is a large, contemporary sculpture of silver pipe and wire.  The building is across the street from the Westin.  We will be meeting between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Monday, August 25.

If you’ve told us that you’ll be attending the meeting, your name is on the list of approved visitors.  If you originally said you couldn’t attend but can now attend, please let Adam Hitchcock know.

For those of you who can’t attend the meeting and would like to participate by conference call, you can use this number:

Conference Dial-in Number: (218) 339-4300

Participant Access Code: 677876#

(And remember, we’re on mountain time)

2)     Attached is the final transition code of conduct, with revisions from last Friday’s discussion.  All board and staff should sign the code of conduct, as well as working group members.  Information on how to fax/email the completed forms back to me is at the bottom of the form.  And if you have questions about the specific application of the ethics code to a particular person or situation, please contact Cassandra Butts at cbutts.obama08@gmail.com.

Here’s the memo we sent the Senator today.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Weekly Transition Memo for Senator Obama

From:  Transition Advisory Board and Staff

Date:   August 17, 2008

I.          White House Meeting

This week, John Podesta and Melody Barnes met with White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and other White House officials to begin discussions about the transition process.

National Security – Arrangements are being made for intelligence briefings after the convention and more expansive briefings after the election.  We have requested additional security clearances for the campaign staff.  In addition, homeland security exercises are being prepared to share with our team during the transition period.

General Policy and Budget – Administration policy personnel are preparing chronologies, timelines, 90 day critical paths, and information about relevant executive orders.  Immediately after the election, an Administration team, including senior leaders, will be prepared to brief our budget team.  The Administration also will prepare a skeletal current services plus specific needs budget.  

Personnel – Within 15 days of the convention, OPM will provide a list of presidential appointments and openings.  Briefing books are being prepared with organizational charts and descriptions of the agencies and functions within the agencies.  The White House officials raised concerns about the current White House personnel database.  We are designing our database to be compatible with the White House system, but Administration officials have suggested that it might be better to scrap the current government system and start with a new one.

Confirmation Process – The White House is focused on working with us, the McCain campaign, and the Senate to reach an agreement on an expedited confirmation process, with a goal of confirming 100 appointments by the end of February.  Bolten would like all parties to agree on which appointments fall within the top 100; our sense is that he believes these positions should be focused on Cabinet members and national security positions.  We believe that our priority appointments might not match those of the White House or the McCain campaign.

Agency Review – The White House is working on a clearance process that will allow our agency teams to go into federal departments immediately after the election.  

II.         Economic Policy Working Group

On our weekly call, we approved the work plan for the economic policy group.  The goal of this group is to provide senior policy advisors with clear, vetted policy options and recommendations for decisions to be made during the first year of the new administration.  Over the next two and a half months, the group will remain engaged with the campaign policy staff without interfering with their day-to-day responsibilities.

The economic policy group will focus on these areas:  budget (including taxes); stimulus/growth plan; trade; financial markets (including GSEs); and other miscellaneous issues such as labor.  There will be team leaders for each of these focus areas.  The work product of these teams would be reviewed informally by a group of “wise men and women,” such as Paul Volcker and Larry Summers.

Bill Daley is working with Josh Steiner on this economic working group.

III.       Code of Conduct

After much discussion, the board has approved a code of conduct to govern people working on the transition.  This code of conduct is based on the ethics principles you have stated during the campaign.  Among other things, the code of conduct would require the following: 

·         Disqualification from involvement in any particular matter in which the individual has lobbied over the past 12 months or that poses a financial conflict of interest, to the individual herself, or her family members, partners, clients, or business associates.

·         Prohibition on transition personnel lobbying federal agencies over which they have substantial responsibility during the duration of the transition.  For 12 months after serving on the transition, personnel may not lobby a federal agency on any particular matter over which the individual has had substantial responsibility.

·         A ban on receiving gifts from people seeking government positions, federal employees, or other people with an interest in the work of the transition.

·         A ban on federal lobbyists making financial contributions to the transition or holding leadership positions on the transition

·         A ban on foreign agents working on the transition.

IV.       Next Meetings

The transition board and staff are scheduled to meet on August 25 in Denver.  We will also meet again on September 2 in D.C. with working group leaders.

As stated in a previous email, we’re planning to meet in D.C. on Tuesday, September 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  We’ll be meeting at Perkins Coie, 607 14^th Street, NW, 8^th floor.  This meeting will include not only transition board and staff, but also working group leaders.  I know some of your groups have multiple co-chairs, but the room can only hold 40 people.  So I'd really like to limit participation to one person per working group (excluding board members and staff).  If you really think two need to be there, let me know, and we can see if we have room.    

Please send Adam (ahitchcock@barackobama.com) a list of who will be attending from your working groups, and we can compile a master list of attendees. 

Also, given our limited budget, we can’t guarantee that we can pay travel expenses for any working group members coming to this meeting.  So, if you’re deciding between a D.C.-based person and a non-D.C. person, you might want to pick the former.   Obviously, everyone (including board members) should hold onto their receipts, and we might be able to reimburse expenses when our coffers are a little more full.

Speaking of which, we currently only have $35,000 in the bank, and most of that is allocated to August salaries.  So, please ask your donors to send in their checks.   So far, here’s who has given money:

Name                                    Amount               Date      Solicitor

Frank Brosens                   5000                       11-Aug  Mike

Tom Wheeler                    5000                       12-Aug  Don

Eric Mindich                        5000                       13-Aug  Mike

Blair Effron                          5000                       16-Aug  Mike

James Crowe                     5000                       16-Aug  Don

Bruce J. Oreck                   5000                       18-Aug  Don

Charlotte Oreck                5000                       18-Aug  Don

Also, if it's easier, Adam or I could reach out to your donors.  Just let us know.  Thanks.

Welcome to Denver soon!

The conference room for Monday’s meeting in Vestar’s office building is on the 24^th Floor.  Vestar’s offices are actually on the 16^th floor, where we have a few empty offices should you need to make phone calls before or after the 9:30-12:30 meeting.

See you Monday.

When John and Melody met with Josh Bolten recently, there was a discussion about the new requirements to facilitate presidential transitions that were included in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.  Below (and attached) is a memo that one of our research assistants did on the subject:

TO:                  Chris Lu

FROM:            Blake Roberts

RE:                  Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 — Impact on Transition

Question presented

How does the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 affect Transition?

Short Answer

The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 encourages rapid placement of national security personnel in both Transition and the new Administration and requires immediate transfer of information from current Executive Branch officials to the President-Elect.

The Act:

• Allows each major party candidate, before the election, to request security clearances for prospective transition team members who would need access to classified information to carry out transition responsibilities; and requires the investigating agency to process the requests, to the fullest extent practicable, by the day after the election.
• Encourages the President-Elect to request security clearances for high level national security candidates as soon as possible after the election; and requires the investigating agency to process the requests as soon as possible before the inauguration.
• Encourages the President-Elect to submit high level national security nominees to the Senate before inauguration; and encourages the Senate to confirm or reject the nominees within 30 days.
• Requires executive officials to prepare a detailed written summary of current national security issues and deliver it to the President-Elect as soon as possible after the election.

Discussion

Section 7601 of the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 “addresses the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation to improve the transition between administrations.”  Cong. Rec. S10008 (Sep. 30, 2004) (Sen. McCain).  During the course of their investigation, Commissioners found that “the time of transition is a time of great vulnerability for our country” and that “[n]ational security policy making is too important to be disrupted by transition between administrations or delayed by an overburdened system.”  Testimony of Commissioner Fred Fielding before the Senate Oversight of Government Management Subcommittee (Sep. 14, 2004).  The Commission recommended several reforms so “transitions can work more effectively and allow new officials to assume their responsibilities as soon as possible.”  The 9-11 Commission Report 422-23, quoted in Cong. Rec. S10008 (Sep. 30, 2004) (Sen. McCain).  To implement these recommendations, Senators McCain and Lieberman introduced the text of section 7601 as an amendment; it passed on a voice vote.  Cong. Rec. S10007 – 9 (Sep. 30, 2004).

The Act affects four aspects of Transition —

(1)   Security clearances for prospective transition team members;

(2)   Security clearances for candidates for national security positions in the Administration;

(3)   Senate consideration of candidates for high level national security positions.

(4)   Transmission of national security information from officials to the President-Elect;

See § 7601, Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, Pub. L. 108-458, 118 Stat. 3857 (Dec. 17, 2004).

1.      Security Clearances for Transition Team Members

The statute provides:

Each major party candidate for President may submit, before the date of the general election, requests for security clearances for prospective transition team members who will have a need for access to classified information to carry out their responsibilities as members of the President-elect's transition team.

. . . Necessary background investigations and eligibility determinations to permit appropriate prospective transition team members to have access to classified information shall be completed, to the fullest extent practicable, by the day after the date of the general election.

Section 7601(b) (codified at 50 U.S.C. § 435b note).

This provision was recommended by the 9-11 Commission.  Report at 422.

The agency implementing this statute may require us to wait until Senator Obama accepts the Democratic nomination to submit requests under this provision.  The term “major party candidate for President” could be read to only include persons who have been nominated by their party (who were previously candidates for the party nomination).

The statute does not define “prospective transition team members” or “who will have a need for access,” apparently leaving that determination to the candidate.  This may allow us to submit requests for a range of personnel whose transition work at least partially intersects with national security.

2.      Security Clearances for Administration Candidates

The Act provides:

(1) The President-elect should submit to the Federal Bureau of Investigation or other appropriate agency . . . the names of candidates for high level national security positions through the level of undersecretary of cabinet departments as soon as possible after the date of the general election[] . . .

(2) The responsible agency or agencies shall undertake and complete as expeditiously as possible the background investigations necessary to provide appropriate security clearances to the individuals . . . before the date of the inauguration . . . .

Section 7601(a) (codified at 3 U.S.C. § 102 note). 

This provision was recommended by the 9-11 Commission.  Report at 422.  Senator McCain advocated for this provision because having “Defense Department, as well as other national-security-related positions, literally vacant for months and months and months . . . is really not an acceptable situation.”  Cong. Rec. S10009 (Sep. 30, 2004).

3.      Senate Confirmation of Administration Nominees

The Act also contains a Sense of the Senate addressing the confirmation process:

(1) [T]he President-elect should submit the nominations of candidates for high-level national security positions, through the level of undersecretary of cabinet departments, to the Senate by the . . . inauguration . . . and

(2) for all such national security nominees received by the date of inauguration, the Senate committees to which these nominations are referred should, to the fullest extent possible, complete their consideration of these nominations, and, if such nominations are reported by the committees, the full Senate should vote to confirm or reject these nominations, within 30 days of their submission.

Section 7601(b). 

Instead of this provision, the 9-11 Commission recommended that the Senate “adopt special rules requiring hearings and votes to confirm or reject national security nominees within 30 days of their submission.”  Report at 422.  While the Sense of the Senate statement in the Act is not binding, it may remind participants in the confirmation process of the risks associated with unnecessary delay.  It could also be a powerful talking point.

4.      Transmission of Information

The Act provides that:

Activities . . . shall include the preparation of a detailed classified, compartmented summary by the relevant outgoing executive branch officials of specific operational threats to national security; major military or covert operations; and pending decisions on possible uses of military force. This summary shall be provided to the President-elect as soon as possible after the date of the general election[].

Section 7601(a) (codified at 3 U.S.C. § 102 note). 

This provision was recommended by the 9-11 Commission, report at 422, after it found that “the [Clinton-Bush] transition process didn’t serve well in the briefing and handing over of important national security decisions from one administration to another.”  Fielding Testimony (Sep. 14, 2004).

Conclusion

The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004 encourages rapid placement of national security personnel in both Transition and the new Administration and requires immediate transfer of information from current Executive Branch officials to the President-Elect.  The passages providing for early investigation of Transition and Administration personnel do not rigidly define who is eligible for this treatment.

Here’s a paper from the energy policy working group.  We’ll have paper copies of this one as well tomorrow morning.

I’ve asked our research assistants to make some stylistic changes to these documents:  more emphasis on what Obama has said he would do in the first 100 days; what offices he said he’d create (e.g., energy czar, White House office of urban development); less emphasis on Illinois-specific things.  But here’s a first draft of both documents.  Let me know what comments you have.

As I said, we’re starting on the main six policy areas:  energy, health, education, economy, national security, immigration.

Just some more details on next Tuesday’s meeting in D.C.

n  We will be meeting at the offices of Perkins Coie, 607 14^th St., NW, 8^th Floor, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

n  For anyone who can’t make it, we’ll have conference call capability: 

Conference Dial-in Number: (218) 339-4300

Participant Access Code: 677876#

n  For those traveling from out of town, if you can combine this trip with other business, that would obviously be good.  If not, we will make best efforts to reimburse your expenses.  But to minimize expenses, you might want to consider two nice hotels nearby:  the Hamilton Crowne Plaza (14^th & K St., NW, 202-682-0111, $133 a night) and Sheraton Four Points (1201 K St., NW, 202-289-7600, $95 a night).

n  Since I don’t have the email addresses of the working group leaders that will be attending, I will leave it to each board member to pass along this information to their invitees.

n  In terms of meeting participants, we will need your names for the security desk.  Here’s the list of RSVPs that Adam gathered a while ago.  Please let Adam know if your participation has changed:

n  In addition, I have been told that the following working group leaders are attending: 

National security – Jim Steinberg

Economy - ?

Energy - ?

Health, Education, Immigration - ?

Personnel – Jamie Rubin, Christine Varney, Gayle Smith

Agency review – Lisa Brown

Tech - John Leibovitz, Beth Noveck

Outside presenters – Jim Margolis, Phil Schiliro

The room can hold about 35 people, so again, we’re asking working groups to limit the number of participants who are invited.

1)      Attached is a memo on the White House that John and Todd have prepared.

2)      Below is a draft agenda for Tuesday’s meeting.

Transition Agenda – September 2, 2008

10:00 – 10:15 a.m. – Welcome and introductions

10:15 – 10:45 a.m. – Campaign themes and message – Margolis

10:45 – 11:15 a.m. – Overview of transition structure – Podesta

11:15 – 12:15 p.m. – Budget process – Daley, Steiner

12:15 – 12:30 p.m. – Lunch break

12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – National security discussion – Rice, Steinberg, Sewall

1:00 – 1:30 p.m. – Interaction with the Hill – Schiliro

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. – Government reform, transparency, accountability – Genachowski, Shah

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. – Follow-up discussion of agency review process – Gips, Barnes, Brown

2:30 – 3:30 p.m. – Master calendar for working groups

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. – Wrap-up and next meeting dates

3)      Here are the names we’ve provided to the security desk.  Let me know if there are any changes:

Melody Barnes

Lisa Brown

Carol Browner

Dennis Burke

Cassandra Butts

Bill Daley

Chris Edley

Mike Froman

Julius Genachowski

Don Gips

Adam Hitchcock

Elgie Holstein

Valerie Jarrett

John Leibovitz

Chris Lu

Jim Margolis

Janet Napolitano

Beth Noveck

Federico Pena

John Podesta

Susan Rice

Pete Rouse

Jamie Rubin

Phil Schiliro

Sarah Sewall

Sonal Shah

Gayle Smith

Jim Steinberg

Josh Steiner

Todd Stern

Christine Varney

4)      Regarding donations, we’ve collected $110,000 so far, but we’re still a long way from our $300,000 goal.  If you have checks from your donors, please bring them to the Tuesday meeting.  Thanks.

The agency review working group made some changes to the document I sent out yesterday, so please use the attached version.  The name is bold is the proposed team leader, and the names in italics are the team members.

We added a half-hour discussion of personnel and shifted some things around:

Transition Meeting Agenda – September 2, 2008

10:00 – 10:30 a.m. – Introductions and overview of transition structure – Podesta

10:30 – 11:10 a.m. – National security discussion – Rice, Steinberg, Sewall

11:10 – 11:50 p.m. – Budget process – Daley, Steiner

11:50 – 12:20 p.m. – Follow-up discussion on personnel – Pena, Froman, Butts

12:20 – 12:30 p.m. – Lunch break

12:30 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Government reform, transparency, accountability – Genachowski, Shah

1:00 – 1:30 p.m. – Campaign message and themes – Dunn

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. – Interaction with the Hill – Schiliro

2:00 – 2:45 p.m. – Follow-up discussion of agency review process – Gips, Barnes, Brown

2:45 – 3:30 p.m. – Master calendar for working groups

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. – Wrap-up and next meeting dates

Attached is a first draft of the national security promises.  Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Here’s what Obama said in the Univision debate.  It’s a little fuzzy:

"And that is something I have championed, and that is something I will pass when I am president of the United States; we will begin working on it the first year." Univision Debate Transcript 09/09/07

Federico believes there might be subsequent statements in press interviews that might be more definitive.  We’re checking now.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Chris Lu

clu@barackobama.com

(312) 505-4864 (cell 1)

(703) 309-4720 (cell 2)

Here’s a first draft of the education promises for your review and comments.

With help from Sonal and her gang at Google, Chuq Yang (our IT staffer) has set up secure data rooms.  You should be receiving emails inviting you to the rooms.  The way that the rooms are set up is like this:

1)      General room – there is a general room that we’ll upload all of the policy promises, as well as legal documents like expense reimbursements and contribution forms.  All of the principals on this list will have access to this room.  (If you’d like to give access to your assistant, just email Chuq at chuqyang@gmail.com.)  Regarding policy promises, from now on, we’ll email out the first drafts when they’re done, but we won’t email out revisions.  The latest version will always be stored in the “general” data room.

2)      Working group rooms – All board members and working group chairs have access to their own rooms (e.g., national security, personnel, etc.)  You can give additional people access to these rooms in two ways.  You can email those requests to Chuq (along with the email address of the invitee) or you can designate someone in your working group to control the access from now on and that person can email invitation requests. 

3)      As needed, we can create additional rooms.  Just let Chuq know.

The one thing you should know is that contrary to the log-in instructions, we’re not giving out “transition2008.com” email addresses.  We think that would compromise our ability to keep this whole enterprise under wraps.

Just to clarify – only the board liaison and the chairs for a particular working group have access to that data room.  So, for example, only the national security folks have access to the national security room.  They wouldn’t have access to the health care room or personnel room.  And vice versa.

With help from Sonal and her gang at Google, Chuq Yang (our IT staffer) has set up secure data rooms.  You should be receiving emails inviting you to the rooms.  The way that the rooms are set up is like this:

1)      General room – there is a general room that we’ll upload all of the policy promises, as well as legal documents like expense reimbursements and contribution forms.  All of the principals on this list will have access to this room.  (If you’d like to give access to your assistant, just email Chuq at chuqyang@gmail.com.)  Regarding policy promises, from now on, we’ll email out the first drafts when they’re done, but we won’t email out revisions.  The latest version will always be stored in the “general” data room.

2)      Working group rooms – All board members and working group chairs have access to their own rooms (e.g., national security, personnel, etc.)  You can give additional people access to these rooms in two ways.  You can email those requests to Chuq (along with the email address of the invitee) or you can designate someone in your working group to control the access from now on and that person can email invitation requests. 

3)      As needed, we can create additional rooms.  Just let Chuq know.

The one thing you should know is that contrary to the log-in instructions, we’re not giving out “transition2008.com” email addresses.  We think that would compromise our ability to keep this whole enterprise under wraps.

1)      Attached is the weekly transition memo that we sent to the Senator.

2)      For your information, here are the contributions we’ve received over the past week.  So far, we’ve raised $222,500 towards a fundraising goal of approximately $350,000.  (Also, if you were the solicitor of Laurie Snow, please let me know so I can credit you.)

As promised, here is a spreadsheet of all Bush executive orders, sortable by issue area and agency.  Like other policy documents, this will be revised, and the most recent version will be posted in the “general” secure data room.

From: dailyreporters-bounces@ideasthatwin.net [mailto:dailyreporters-bounces@ideasthatwin.net] On Behalf Of Bill Burton
Sent: Sunday, September 14, 2008 8:08 AM
To: Bill Burton
Subject: Obama Campaign Launches New TV Ad on a McCain Lobbyist-Run White House

Obama Campaign Launches New TV Ad on a McCain Lobbyist-Run White House

Ad and Events Across the Country to Highlight that a McCain Lobbyist-Run White House Would Bring More of the Same

CHICAGO, IL – Responding to a recent Time magazine report that John McCain tapped Washington super lobbyist Bill Timmons to plan his administration, the Obama campaign released a new 30-second TV ad called His Administration today.  The new ad details how just like his campaign, a John McCain White House would be lobbyist-run with corporate special interests rigging the system against hard working Americans.  See below for information on events across the country denouncing the McCain campaign’s lobbyist ties.

The Ad-“His Administration”

His Administration will air on national cable and in key states across the country beginning Monday.

Click HERE to watch His Administration. See below for the transcript:

“His Administration”

Just wanted to pass along a few things:

1)      I know that some of the working groups are holding meetings at law firms that employ registered lobbyists.  Our ethics lawyers have advised us that the use of such meeting spaces (if it’s not reimbursed) would probably not comply with our internal code of conduct.  There are a few options:  1) reimburse the firm for the use of the space; 2) find a meeting place at a firm that doesn’t employ lobbyists; or 3) use our small conference room at the transition office.  Regarding reimbursement, before you agree to do this, please let me know, so I can see whether it fits into our budget.  Regarding our conference room here, it seats about 8 people max, and if you’d like to use it, email Joani Walsh (joaniwalsh@gmail.com) and she can reserve it for you.

2)      The ethics issue above also would apply to the use of a conference call line that is being paid for by a law firm that employs lobbyists.  It’s probably a good practice for all working groups to set up their own conference call lines through this free service:  http://www.freeconferencecall.com/

3)      The next two meetings for the transition board and working group chairs are Friday, October 3 and Friday, October 10 – both in D.C. at Perkins Coie.   I know the West Coast folks would like to start earlier so they can fly back that evening.  But the VP debate is scheduled for October 2 in St. Louis, and the VP folks have asked to start a little later.  In order to come up with some possible meeting times, please email Adam Hitchcock (ahitchcock@barackobama.com) and let him know whether you’re available both days and what time you’d prefer.

4)      Finally, attached is an article from yesterday’s Roll Call on transitions.

1)      Attached is the first of what I’m sure will be many versions of a spreadsheet with contact info for transition board, staff, and working group chairs.  Please let Adam Hitchcock (ahitchcock@barackobama.com) know if there are any changes.   We’ll also keep the latest version in the “general” data room.

2)      In terms of new policy promises documents, we’ve now posted one on gun rights in the “general” data room.

1)      Per Adam’s email, we’re set for our usual Friday call at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.  Here’s the call-in number:

Phone Number: (269) 320-8200

Access Code: 165390#

We will be discussing the following:

n  An update from the health, education, and immigration policy groups (Edley)

n  An update from the agency review group (Gips and Barnes)

n  An update on the executive order project (Stern)

2)      Over the last day, the following new policy promises documents have been posted on the “general” data room:  retirement security; work and families; public lands; arts and humanities; postal; guns; and civil rights.

Here’s the hearing I mentioned on this morning’s call.

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
Sept. 18, 2008 – 8:34 p.m.

Candidates and DHS Not in Contact About Transition

By Joanna Anderson, CQ Staff

The Department of Homeland Security and the presidential campaigns have not been in contact about the handover of power coming in four months, the first-ever transition to a new administration for DHS.

Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Management Elaine C. Duke told the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia that her team is working to compile briefing books for the presidential nominees but had not contacted — or been approached — by either campaign.

Another witness at the hearing, Frank Chellino of the National Academy of Public Administration, said communication appeared to be stymied by the issue of who should contact whom first.

The subcommittee's ranking Republican, George V. Voinovich of Ohio, suggested he and Chairman Daniel K. Akaka, D-Hawaii, issue a letter to the campaigns to make them aware of transition preparations at the department.

Patricia McGinnis, president and CEO of the Council for Excellence in Government, praised that idea and suggested that the candidates' reticence might be a result of not wanting to appear to be presuming victory in November.

Nevertheless, lawmakers said, the three sides need to get together.

Akaka warned history "suggests that terrorists may target the times shortly before and after governmental transitions" to launch attacks. Akaka cited the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, as well as more recent attacks in Madrid, London and Glasgow.

Terrorism and national security specialist John Rollins of the Congressional Research Service told the panel of speculation that Wednesday's attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen may have been an attempt to seize the embassy in order to create a protracted security situation in advance of the election.

Rollins said the department's internal preparations for the transition were progressing well, but efforts to coordinate with outside players could be improved.

Akaka and Voinovich also said departmental vacancies could hurt transition planning.

"Substantial gaps in DHS leadership will make it difficult for DHS to ensure leadership through the transition," said Akaka, citing a June 2008 report by the National Academy of Public Administration that found vacancies for nearly one in five executive positions at the department and one in four at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"High vacancy rates will compound the burden placed on top career officials when appointees leave," Akaka said.

Duke said the department is working to fill those vacancies and said the vacancy rate has decreased from 20 percent at the time of the report to 13 percent now, adding she expects it to be below 10 percent within a month. Duke said FEMA's rate was down to 15 percent.

Looking ahead to the next team to occupy offices at DHS, Akaka said the "new administration's national and homeland security appointees must be nominated and confirmed more quickly than has happened in the past," noting this was a recommendation of the 9/11 Commission.

McGinnis suggested the Senate leadership commit to an expedited confirmation process for appointees and a standardized or streamlined questioning system from committees.

Akaka also noted that presidential candidates are now able to submit requests for security clearances for their prospective transition team before the election and the president-elect will be able to submit requests for other nominees immediately after the election.

Joanna Anderson can be reached a janderson@cq.com.

1)      This memo went to Obama and Biden yesterday.

2)      Over the last two days, the following policy promises documents have been posted on the “general” data room:   civil liberties; technology and innovation; and housing.

1)      At a previous transition meeting, there was some discussion about a government reform speech that the campaign was planning to give.  That speech was given yesterday in Green Bay and is attached below.  Here is a factsheet on our proposals:  http://obama.3cdn.net/0080cc578614b42284_2a0mvyxpz.pdf.   Because the issues addressed in this proposal affect many of the working groups, it’s worth reading. 

Much of this is similar to a speech that Obama gave last year – no gifts from lobbyists; ban on executive branch officials lobbying the Administration after they leave; all cabinet officials have to do internet chats, etc.  But, there are some new wrinkles.  For instance, we’re now calling for the creation of a Chief Performance Officer in the White House to evaluate the results of government programs and determine what works and doesn’t work.   Also, we’re calling for new enforcement authority for OGE.

2)      Over the past few days, our research assistants have posted the following policy promises documents in the general data room:  faith-based initiatives; courts; reproductive rights; government reform/ethics; and rural/agriculture.

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery

The Change We Need in Washington

Monday, September 22^nd, 2008

Green Bay, Wisconsin

The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has led us to a perilous moment.  They said they wanted to let the market run free but instead they let it run wild, and in doing so, they tramped our core values of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another.  As a result, we are facing a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression.  As a result, your jobs, your savings, and your economic security are now at risk.

This week, we must work quickly, in a bipartisan fashion, to resolve this crisis and avert an even broader economic catastrophe.  And as we do act, Washington must recognize that true economic recovery requires addressing not just the crisis on Wall Street, but the crisis on Main Street that so many of you have been feeling in your own lives long before the news of last week.  We need a plan that helps families stay in their homes, and workers keep their jobs; a plan that gives hardworking Americans relief instead of using taxpayer dollars to reward CEOs on Wall Street.  And we cannot give a blank check to Washington with no oversight and accountability when no oversight and accountability is what got us into this mess in the first place.   

But no matter what solution we finally decide on this week, it is absolutely imperative that we get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place. 

We did not arrive at this moment by some accident of history.  We are in this mess because of a bankrupt philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to the rest of us. 

We’re here because for too long, the doors of Washington have been thrown open to an army of lobbyists and special interests who’ve turned our government into a game only they can afford to play – who have shredded consumer protections, fought against common-sense regulations and rules of the road, and distorted our economy so that it works for them instead of you. 

We are here because an ethic of irresponsibility has swept through our government, leaving politicians with the belief that they can waste billions and billions of your money on no-bid contracts for friends and contributors, slip pork projects into bills during the dead of night, and spend billions on corporate tax breaks we can’t afford and old programs that we don’t need.

And today, even as Congress debates an emergency plan to save our economy from the verge of collapse, there are reports that lobbyists and CEOs are already lining up to figure out what’s in it for them; to find out how they can get theirs. 

Green Bay, enough is enough. 

I began this race for the presidency as the one candidate who hasn’t spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington.  But I’ve been there long enough to know this – if we want a government that puts the needs of middle-class families before the whims of lobbyists and politicians; if we want to grow this economy and prevent a crisis like this from ever happening again, then the ways of Washington must change.  We must reform our lobbyist-driven politics.  We must reform the waste and abuse in our government.  We must reform the rules of the road that let Wall Street run wild and stuck Main Street with the bill.  We must change Washington now. 

This has been our message from the day we began this campaign.  Our opponent, on the other hand, has spent much of the last nineteen months arguing that what qualifies him to be President are the decades he’s spent in Washington.

But with forty-two days left, he’s had a sudden change of heart.  An election-time conversion.  After twenty-six years in Washington – years where he voted for the same trickle-down, on-your-own policies that got us into this mess – he now claims that he’s the one who can clean it up.

Well let’s be clear.  When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could’ve prevented this crisis.  His economic plan was written by Phil Gramm, the architect in the US Senate of the de-regulatory steps that helped cause this mess.  Even knowing what we know now,  Senator McCain said in an interview just last night that de-regulation actually helped grow our economy.  Well that might be true for the profits of a few CEOs, but it’s certainly not true for America’s prosperity. 

When it comes to taking on the special interests, my opponent sounds like Fighting Bob Lafollette.  But he acts like a guy who’s spent three decades of his life in Washington.  He’s put seven of the biggest corporate lobbyists in charge of his campaign – lobbyists for the insurance industry and the oil industry; for foreign governments and Freddie and Fannie Mac, who paid his campaign manager nearly $2 million to defend them against stricter regulations.  I guess they got their money’s worth. 

And rest assured, those lobbyists who are working day and night to elect my opponent aren’t doing it to put themselves out of business.

When it comes to reforming government waste and spending, Senator McCain talks a lot about earmarks.  And while he deserves credit for not requesting many of those earmarks during his time in Congress, what he never mentions is that he voted for 144 billion dollars worth in just six years; or that he voted for four out of the five Bush budgets that have been filled with special interests giveaways and left us with the largest deficit in history.

The truth is, our earmark system in Washington is fraught with abuse.  It badly needs reform – which is why I didn’t request a single earmark last year, why I’ve released all my previous requests for the public to see, and why I’ve pledged to slash earmarks by more than half when I am President. 

But let’s not pretend, as John McCain does, that proposing the elimination of 18 billion dollars of earmarks will make up for the more than 300 billion additional dollars he wants to spend on tax breaks for big corporations and multi-millionaires that don’t need them and weren’t asking for them – more than 300 billion dollars at a time when taxpayers are being asked to help finance two wars and a historic financial bailout.  That’s some pretty creative math, but it doesn’t add up to is change.  And change in Washington is what we need right now. 

This change will not be easy.  It will require reforming our politics by taking power away from the lobbyists who kill good ideas and good plans with secret meetings and campaign checks.  It will require reforming our government by taking on the spending habits of both parties and going after the tax havens and loopholes that big corporations use to avoid paying their fare share while you pay more.  And it will require reforming our out-dated, unfair regulatory system that favors Wall Street over Main Street but has ended up hurting both.

But I am ready to reform our politics because I’ve done it before.  I’ve spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I’ve won.  When I was a state Senator in Illinois, if you wanted a favor, there was actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their own personal use.  In the State House, they called it business-as-usual.  I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn’t make me the most popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it.  I brought Democrats and Republicans together, and we passed the first ethics reform in twenty-five years.

When I got to Washington, Jack Abramoff and his lobbyist pals had engaged in some of the worst corruption since Watergate.  I led the fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you – not everyone in my party was too happy about it.  When I proposed forcing lobbyists to disclose who they’re raising money from and who in Congress they’re funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor of the Senate.  But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists, and discounted rides on their corporate jets.  And I’m the only candidate in this race who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund my campaign, you do – with donations of $100, and $10, and $5.    

I also joined with one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress to end the abuse that allowed no-bid contracts to waste taxpayer dollars instead of using them to rebuild the Gulf Coast after Katrina.  And we worked together to put the federal government’s checkbook online – so you can see how and where Washington is spending trillions of dollars of your money. 

For years, I have also pushed for reform of the same loose regulations and lax oversight that could’ve prevented the crisis we’re in.  It was two years ago that I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse.  It was one year ago that I called on our Treasury Secretary and our Fed Chairman to bring every stakeholder together and find a solution to the subprime mortgage meltdown before it got worse.  In March, when John McCain was saying “I’m always for less regulation,” I called for a new, 21^st century regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust in our financial markets.

These are the types of reform I will pursue beginning on my very first day in office as President of the United States – political reform, government reform, and regulatory reform.

First, I’ll reform our special interest-driven politics.  When I am President, I will start by closing the revolving door in the White House that has allowed people to use their Administration job as a stepping stone to further their lobbying careers.

I’ll make it absolutely clear that working in an Obama Administration is not about serving your former employer, your future employer, or your bank account – it’s about serving your country.  When you walk into my administration, you will not be able to work on regulations or contracts directly related to your former employer for two years.  And when you leave, you will not be able to lobby my Administration – ever.  I will also institute an absolute gift ban so that no registered lobbyist can curry favor with members of my administration based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.

I’ll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people’s business.  As Justice Louis Brandeis once said, sunlight is the greatest disinfectant.  As President, I will make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork-barrel projects or corporate welfare into laws when no one is looking because when I am president, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public.  No more secrecy.

When there is a bill that ends up on my desk as President, you will have five days to look online and find out what’s in it before I sign it.  When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we will put as many as possible online for every American to watch.  When there is a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get.  And we will put every corporate tax break and every pork-barrel project online for every American to see.  You will know who asked for them and you can cast your vote accordingly.

The second set of reforms I’ll make will eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse in our government.   

We are facing the largest deficit in history.  We are facing the largest government bailout in history.  And we are also facing some of the greatest challenges in our history.  All of this will cost money – to fix our health care system, and our schools, and build a new energy economy.  And the only way we can do all this without leaving our children with an even larger debt is if Washington starts taking responsibility for every dime that it spends. 

We can start by ending a war in Iraq that is costing us $10 billion a month when the Iraqi government is sitting on a $79 billion surplus.  We should also stop sending fifteen billion dollars a year in overpayments to insurance companies for Medicare and go after tens of billions of dollars in Medicare and Medicaid fraud.  We need to stop sending three billion a year to banks that provide student loans the government could provide for less, and hundreds of millions a year in subsidies to agribusiness that can survive just fine without your tax dollars and use some of the money to help family farmers who are struggling.  I will put an end to this waste when I am President. 

I am not a Democrat who believes that we can or should defend every government program just because it’s there.  There are some that don’t work like we had hoped – like the Bush Administration’s billion-dollar-a-year reading program that hasn’t improved our children’s reading.  And there are some that have been duplicated by other programs that we just need to cut back – like waste at the Economic Development Agency and the Export-Import Bank that has become little more than a fund for corporate welfare.

I understand there are parts of these programs worth defending and politicians of both parties who will do so.  But if we hope to meet the challenges of our time, we must make difficult choices.  As President, I will go through the entire federal budget, page by page, line by line, and I will eliminate the programs that don’t work and aren’t needed. 

As for the programs we do need, I will make them work better and cost less.  I will create a High-Performance Team that evaluates every agency and every office based on how well they’re serving the American taxpayer.  We will fire government managers who aren’t getting results, we will cut funding for programs that are wasting your money, and we will use technology and lessons from the private sector to improve efficiency across every level of government – because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy.

I will also save billions of dollars by cutting private contractors and improving management of the hundreds of billions of dollars our government spends on private contracts, and I will end the abuse of no-bid contracts for good.  One employee of a former Halliburton subsidiary actually admitted that he was ordered to put his company’s logo on towels provided to U.S. troops because our government – our tax dollars – would pay for it no matter how much it cost.  That is wasteful, that is wrong, and that will end when I am President. 

And for all his talk about earmark abuse, what Senator McCain doesn’t mention these days is the corporate abuse of our tax system – abuse that has cost far more than earmarks ever have.  In 2003, loopholes and tax breaks allowed 28 major corporations to actually have negative tax liabilities.  We lose $100 billion every year because corporations get to set up mailboxes offshore so they can avoid paying a dime of taxes in America.  Imagine if you got to do that?  There is a building right now in the Cayman Islands that is the address for 18,000 corporations.  Well that is either the biggest building in the world or the biggest sham in the world, and I think we know which one it is.  I will shut down those offshore tax havens and all those corporate loopholes as President, because you shouldn’t have to pay higher taxes because some big corporation cut corners to avoid paying theirs.  All of us have a responsibility to pay our fair share.  That’s putting country first. 

Finally, the third set of reforms I will pursue are the updated, common-sense regulations of the financial market that I’ve been calling for since March; rules of the road that will make Wall Street fair, open, and honest; that will ensure a crisis like this can never happen again.  

I’ve outlined six principles that such reforms should follow.

First, if you’re a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision.  Taxpayers who have now been called upon to spend nearly a trillion dollars to save our economy from the excesses of Wall Street have every right to expect that financial institutions are not taking excessive risks.

Second, we need to reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions, investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating, and establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders.

Third, we need to streamline our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies that cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape.

Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system.

Fifth, we need to crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation.  We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them.  The SEC should investigate and punish all market manipulation.

Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy.  We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It’s time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.

These are the principles that should guide the reforms we need to establish a 21st century regulatory system – a system that recognizes our free market economy has only worked because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle – that America prospers when all Americans can prosper.

To restore this prosperity, we must change Washington.  We must reform our regulations, our politics, and our government, but we will not be able to make these changes with the same policies, the same lobbyists, or the same Washington culture that allows politicians and special interests to set their own agenda.

That’s exactly what we will get from John McCain.  After twenty-six years of being part of this Washington culture, all that he has changed is his slogan for the fall campaign.  And the people in charge of that campaign prove that if we elect John McCain, it’s not a team of mavericks we’ll be sending to the White House – it’s a team of lobbyists. 

We can’t afford four more years of that kind of politics.  We need real change.   

It won’t be easy.  The kind of change we’re looking for never is.  What we are up against is a very powerful, entrenched status quo in Washington who will say anything and do anything and fight with everything they’ve got to keep things just the way are.   

But I feel good about our chances, because I’ve got something more powerful than they do:  I’ve got you.  In this campaign, you have already shown what history teaches us – that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington.  Change comes to Washington. 

Change has always come from places like Wisconsin – the state where the progressive movement was born; where laws were passed to regulate the railroads and insurance companies; laws that protected consumers and the safety of factory workers.  It was a movement rooted in a principle that was known as the Wisconsin Idea – the idea that government works best in the hands of the people, not the special interests; that your voices should speak louder than the whispers of lobbyists.

That’s the Wisconsin idea.  That’s the America idea.  And that’s the kind of government we need right now. 

So if you want the next four years in Washington to look just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate.  But if you want real change – if you want to shine a bright light into the backrooms of Washington; if you want to replace the special interests with your interests, if you want a government that costs less and works better for everyday Americans, then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls, and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4^th.  And if you do, I promise you – we will change America together.  Thank you. 

###

Carol asked me to forward this to the group attending Friday’s transition meeting.  If you need to email her with an RSVP or questions, her email is cbrowner@thealbrightgroupllc.com.

All -- realizing that some of our group will no doubt be arriving on Thursday night in anticipation of our meeting on Friday morning I thought it might be fun to watch the VP debate together. 

Dinner at 8; Debate at 9. 

Where:  1750 16^th Street, NW – 16^th and S (DuPont Circle)

202-588-9783 H

202-365-8127 C

Carol,

Many thanks for the invitation but I will be at the debate in St. Louis and arriving Friday morning.

Federico

Two things for your reading pleasure:

1)      On Wednesday, the Partnership for Public Service is releasing a report on ways to improve government operations.  An embargoed copy is attached:

2)      Dennis Burke brought the press release below to my attention, and I thought others might benefit from seeing it:

News Release

09/29/2008

State and Local Leaders Call on Next Administration to Prioritize Federal-State-Local Partnerships

Contact: Jodi Omear, 202-624-5346

Office of Communications

Senators McCain and Obama Urged to Consult States, Locals When Setting National Policy

PHILADELPHIA—The elected leadership of the National Governors Association (NGA), the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), the Council of State Governments (CSG), the National Association of Counties (NACo), the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), the National League of Cities (NLC) and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA)—known as the "Big 7"—joined together in Philadelphia today to highlight the important roles state and local government leaders play in solving national issues and call on the next president to actively engage these leaders when determining national policy.

The following statement was issued by Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, NGA; Representative Donna Stone, NCSL; Representative Bob Godfrey, CSG; Supervisor Don Stapley, NACo; Mayor Doug Palmer, USCM, Mayor Kathleen Novak, NLC; and City Manager David Limardi, ICMA.

"The federal-state-local partnership is vital to ensuring the general welfare and well-being of our citizens and our country. As a new administration begins, it is important to recognize that the foundation of this partnership must be developed early and continuously nurtured and strengthened. To promote this relationship, the leaders of state and local government ask the next president to follow two main guiding principles.

"The first is to consult and cooperate with state and local leaders. We are on the frontlines everyday and know the effect of national policies and programs on the delivery of services to our citizens. We ask the next administration to adopt a policy of constructive engagement with state and local government to gather relevant information about existing issues, build on innovative programs already in place at the state and local level and ensure national policies are implemented in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

"Second, we encourage the next Administration to promote innovation at the state and local level. State and local leaders can respond more quickly and experiment more widely than our federal partners. We urge the new president to strive for federal policy that encourages this innovation by maximizing state and local flexibility as we implement national policies and programs.

"To ensure a productive relationship among federal, state and local levels of government, we are calling on the next Administration to demonstrate its commitment to strengthening the partnership by taking the following actions within 60 days of taking office:

Reaffirm an Executive Order on Federalism;

·         Establish an Office of Intergovernmental Affairs within the White House to serve as a conduit between the President and state and local leaders immediately after taking office; and

·         Meet with members of the Big 7 state and local organizations to discuss how best to develop a strong partnership to address national policy.

"We are committed to maintaining a strong federal-state-local partnership and look forward to working with next administration to solve the challenges facing our country and better serve Americans."

Carol asked me to mention that spouses and partners are welcome to attend her debate watch party on Thursday evening.

Carol asked me to forward this to the group attending Friday’s transition meeting.  If you need to email her with an RSVP or questions, her email is cbrowner@thealbrightgroupllc.com.

All -- realizing that some of our group will no doubt be arriving on Thursday night in anticipation of our meeting on Friday morning I thought it might be fun to watch the VP debate together. 

Dinner at 8; Debate at 9. 

Where:  1750 16^th Street, NW – 16^th and S (DuPont Circle)

202-588-9783 H

202-365-8127 C

1)      We will be meeting this Friday at Perkins Coie, 607 14^th St., Suite 800, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

2)      If you can’t make it or will be late, here’s the call-in number we’ll use:

Conference Dial-in Number: (712) 432-0600

Participant Access Code: 560778#

3)      As for the policy memos, TIGR has circulated their memo separately.  And the energy group’s memo is attached.  When I get others, I’ll circulate them as well.

Given the fact that the majority of the meeting participants are on the East Coast, we decided to go ahead with our original plan and hold this Friday’s meeting in D.C.  To accommodate people who need to be in Chicago that day, we’ll have a video conference location set up there.  The D.C. meeting location will be at Hogan and Hartson (more details to follow).   For anyone expending personal funds to travel to the meeting, please let me know if you’d like to be reimbursed for your travel expenses.  We do have funds available for this purpose.

It would be helpful to know everyone’s travel plans so we can set the meeting time and agenda accordingly.  If you have any special requests, just email Adam at ahitchcock@barackobama.com.

On Friday, we’re planning to meet from 9:30 a.m. until 2 p.m. (with some possible time modifications on the start or end time to accommodate schedules).  As for the agenda of the meeting, I’ll circulate something in the next few days, but some of the topics we’d like to cover are:

n  Quick updates from the working groups, with an emphasis on what needs to happen the first two weeks after Election Day (meetings, decisions, events, opportunities)

n  Discussion about the organizational structure of the transition and how the transition planning work product will be handed off to the incoming administration

n  Initial discussion of the communications plan

n  Discussion of logistics and operations decisions (budget and facilities)

As for future meetings/calls, here’s what we’re thinking about:

Friday, Oct. 17 – Conference call – probably around an hour or so

Friday, Oct. 24 – Meeting in D.C. – 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (again with some possible time modifications)

Friday, Oct. 31 – Conference call – probably around three hours or so.

1)      Todd and John have come up with a template for how the policy documents should be drafted.  See attached.

2)      After cataloguing all Bush executive orders, the research assistants have catalogued all Bush presidential memoranda.  See attached.

3)      In addition, over the past week, we’ve added the following promises documents to the general data room:  crime, national service, science, consumer protection, disabilities, FEMA/Katrina, mining, occupational safety, space, transportation, and tech/innovation.

1)      Todd and John have come up with a template for how the policy documents should be drafted.  See attached.

 

2)      After cataloguing all Bush executive orders, the research assistants have catalogued all Bush presidential memoranda.  See attached.

 

3)      In addition, over the past week, we've added the following promises documents to the general data room:  crime, national service, science, consumer protection, disabilities, FEMA/Katrina, mining, occupational safety, space, transportation, and tech/innovation.

 

 

1)      Todd and John have come up with a template for how the policy documents should be drafted.  See attached.

 

2)      After cataloguing all Bush executive orders, the research assistants have catalogued all Bush presidential memoranda.  See attached.

 

3)      In addition, over the past week, we've added the following promises documents to the general data room:  crime, national service, science, consumer protection, disabilities, FEMA/Katrina, mining, occupational safety, space, transportation, and tech/innovation.

 

 

Given the number of new people we’ve brought into our planning in recent weeks, it’s probably not surprising that this story appeared.  Still, it’s worth a reminder to everyone on your teams about the importance of protecting the confidentiality of the process.  On a positive note, it’s a good thing we spent so much time hashing out every word of our ethics code.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/obama-mccain-transition-e_n_132976.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/08/text-obama-transition-pro_n_133162.html

Obama, McCain Transition Efforts Are Worlds Apart

October 8, 2008 10:46 PM

As the 2008 campaign nears its conclusion, the presidential transition efforts of the two major candidates have become a study in contrasts: Sen. Barack Obama has organized an elaborate well-staffed network to prepare for his possible ascension to the White House, while Sen. John McCain has all but put off such work until after the election.

The Democratic nominee has enlisted the assistance of dozens of individuals -- divided into working groups for particular federal agencies -- to produce policy agendas and lists of recommended appointees. As evidence of their advanced preparations, officials provided a copy of the strict ethics guidelines that individuals working on the transition effort are required to sign.

John McCain, by contrast, has done little. Campaign spokespersons did not respond to requests for elaboration. But one official with direct knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed concern with McCain's approach. The Arizona Senator has instructed his team to not spend time on the transition effort, according to the source, both out of a desire to have complete focus on winning the election as well as a superstitious belief that the campaign shouldn't put the cart before the horse.

Virtually every modern non-incumbent presidential candidate has organized, during the course of the campaign, a transition effort to prepare for the early months of a potential administration. These teams help build lists and vet individuals who could serve in key government posts. They hammer out proposals to facilitate policy making from day one. And they work closely with outgoing administration officials to better understand the true lay of the political land.

Governance scholars consider the process invaluable, particularly as the nation struggles with a major economic crisis, two active wars, and a range of domestic security threats. "Our enemies understand how potentially vulnerable we are in the transition from one administration to the next," Clay Johnson III, former Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition, said recently at a forum on transition planning. "This is something we need to be very, very seriously prepared for."

With 100 or so days before the next president takes office, Obama's transition effort has been organized into roughly a dozen teams of six to eight people to plot out the approach for each agency, according to a Democratic official. The ethics code governing the process prohibits staff from working on subjects that could be deemed a financial conflict of interests, either to that member or that member's family.

Under the code - a copy of which can be viewed here - lobbyists will be able to serve on the Obama transition team provided it has been more than a year since he or she lobbied on the subject to which they have been assigned. Current federally registered lobbyists will not be "permitted to serve in a titled role for the Obama Transition Project," nor for that matter will they be allowed to "contribute to or collect contributions for the Obama Transition Project."

There is less known about what the McCain campaign has been doing, partially because there are fewer details to unearth. The GOP nominee has tasked his transition to William Timmons, a well-known Washington hand and long-time lobbyist. According to a source close to the effort, Timmons has held conference calls with campaign officials and is plotting out various aspects to the impending transition. There is not, at this time, an ethics policy in place, the source says.

A call to Timmons went unreturned. "Bill does not talk to the press but I'll tell him you called," said his secretary. "Thank you."

The disparate approach that each campaign has taken to the transition process is in some ways a reflection of the personality of the candidates themselves. Obama's efforts have been criticized as presumptuous by the McCain campaign. But veterans of the process argue that the well-organized plan that Obama is pursuing will help ensure smooth continuity between administrations, not to mention avoid embarrassing political hiccups.

"Government is becoming more complex and the time it is taking to put a leadership team in key departments is taking longer," said P.J. Crowley, who heads the Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative at the Center for American Progress. "I think that if a campaign is waiting until November 5 to start the transition process, they are going to be behind. It is not being presumptuous -- it is being prudent to be prepared before the election so that you can at least make the transition process effective as possible and be ready to govern on January 20."

The president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, former White House chief of staff John Podesta, is reportedly heading up Obama's transition team.

McCain, in contrast, appears willing to tackle important aspects of his potential transition in real time. It is a stance that fits the Senator's sometimes ad hoc approach to politics, and one that allows him to focus staff and resources on the pending election. McCain's transition would also be less drastic than Obama's since, in all likelihood, there will not be as vast an ideological and staff shift.

But this approach could create significant obstacles down the road. For example, as Crowley notes, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had only a fraction of his leadership team in place on 9/11 - roughly eight months after his President Bush took office.

"It is irresponsible not to have a well organized, thoughtful vigorous transition, right now," said Mickey Kantor, a Clinton administration official who was there for the 1992 transition and who has consulted with the Obama campaign about its efforts. "I am surprised that John McCain would take that position. This government is very complicated. And I don't care how many years you have spent on it you don't truly understand it until you get to the middle of it."

Attached are the memos from five of the seven policy working groups.

We’re still moving things around on the agenda, but here’s a tentative agenda for tomorrow.

Draft Agenda for October 10, 2008 Transition Meeting

9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. – Welcome and introduction of new attendees

9:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. -- Updates from policy groups (with focus on November action items)

10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Discussion of structure of the transition and information flow

12:00 p.m. – 12:30 p.m. – Update on operations/logistics

12:30 p.m. -- 12:45 p.m.  – Lunch break

12:45 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. – Initial discussion of communications strategy

1:15 p.m. – 1:35 p.m. – Ethics discussion

1:35 p.m. -- 1:55 p.m. – Update on personnel

1:55 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. – Wrap-up

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html

HuffPost: McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort

By Murray Waas

The Washington lobbyist John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who McCain aide William Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.

John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had "stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could."

Timmons declined to comment for this story. An office manager who works for him said that he has made it his practice during his public career to never speak to the press. Timmons previously told investigators that he did not know that either Vincent or Park were acting as unregistered agents of Iraq. He also insisted that he did not fully understand just how closely the two men were tied to Saddam's regime while they collaborated.

But testimony and records made public during Park's criminal trial, as well as other information uncovered during a United Nations investigation, suggest just the opposite. Virtually everything Timmons did while working on the lobbying campaign was within days conveyed by Vincent to either one or both of Saddam Hussein's top aides, Tariq Aziz and Nizar Hamdoon. Vincent also testified that he almost always relayed input from the Iraqi aides back to Timmons.

Talking points that Timmons produced for the lobbyists to help ease the sanctions, for example, were reviewed ahead of time by Aziz, Vincent testified in court. Proposals that Timmons himself circulated to U.S. officials as part of the effort were written with the assistance of the Iraqi officials, and were also sent ahead of time with Timmons' approval to Aziz, other records show.

Moreover, there was a major financial incentive at play for Timmons. The multi-million dollar oil deal that he was pursuing with the two other lobbyists would only be possible if their efforts to ease sanctions against Iraq were successful.

Vincent, an Iraqi-born American citizen with whom Timmons worked most closely, pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in January 2005 that he had acted as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's regime. Tongsun Park, the second lobbyist who Timmons worked closely with, was convicted by a federal jury in July 2006 on charges that he too violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

As part of a plea bargain agreement with the Justice Department, Vincent agreed to testify against Park and others in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He was the government's chief witness against Park during Park's trial. Park was sentenced to five years in prison after his conviction.

A U.N commission headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker conducted an exhaustive investigation of the oil-for-food program, in which various individuals were found to have paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. The findings of the Volcker Commission detail the roles of Vincent, Park and Timmons in trying to ease the sanctions.

* * * * *

Timmons testified that he first introduced Vincent to Tongsun Park and encouraged him to hire Park to work on the deal.

At the time Timmons introduced the two men, Park's notorious background was well known:

In the 1970s, Park had admitted to making hundreds of thousands in payments and illegal campaign contributions to U.S. congressmen on behalf of the South Korean government. Park was indicted on 36 counts by a federal grand jury, but fled to South Korea before he could face trial. All of the charges were later dismissed in exchange for Park providing information about which public officials received funds from the South Korean government.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not long after Timmons suggested that Vincent hire Park to assist their influence, lobbying, and back-channel diplomatic efforts on behalf of Saddam Hussein's government, much of that effort became increasingly bizarre, corrupt, and - on occasion - illegal.

Vincent testified that Park covertly received millions of dollars from Saddam's government that was supposed to be used to bribe then-U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali to ease international sanctions against Iraq. But both men simply pocketed the money, according to Vincent. (There is no evidence that Boutros Ghali even knew of Iraq's intention to bribe him.)

Investigations by the Justice Department and the Volcker commission disclosed that Park also served as the middleman for a million dollar payment that investigators believed was a bribe for another senior United Nations official. That official in fact admitted receiving the money from Park, but said he did not know that the funds originated with Saddam's regime.

Timmons told federal investigators that he was unaware of these particular activities, and investigators were unable to uncover any evidence to contradict that claim.

Timmons also claimed that he was motivated to push forward with the lobbying campaign with Vincent and Park not only to assist Saddam's regime but also because he believed that his actions would serve U.S. interests, that they would help the people of Iraq obtain needed medicine and food being denied them by sanctions, and would serve to facilitate a rapprochement of relations between Hussein and the U.S. that would be beneficial to both countries.

But there was a financial incentive in play as well. During the same period, Vincent was hard at work obtaining contracts with Iraq to purchase and resell Iraqi oil allowed under international sanctions; Timmons would have stood to benefit financially from those contracts.

Timmons claimed to investigators that any contracts offered to him, Vincent, and Park would be awarded solely on merit, and had nothing to do with their lobbying efforts.

But Vincent told investigators that their work clearly gave them an inside track. And in other instances, in which Timmons was not involved, Vincent profited from lucrative oil-for-food contracts awarded by Iraq as compensation for his effort to buy influence in the U.S. and at the U.N. for Saddam's regime.

At Park's trial, Vincent testified that he, Park, and Timmons stood to make as much as $45 million in profits from one particular oil venture with Saddam's regime had it gone forward. Park testified that he was unsure exactly what percentage of the proceeds each of the three men would have personally received. The deal ultimately fell through.

An investigator who worked on the U.N. investigation of the oil-for-food program told me that Timmons clearly should have or did understand that he was the possible recipient of oil contracts from the Iraqi government because of his lobbying and back channel diplomatic efforts on behalf of Saddam: "He would have to be the most naive person in the world to believe that was not the case," the official told me. "I guess William Timmons is just a natural born oilman. He is either deceiving himself to rationalize what he has done or taking the rest of us for fools."

Between 1997 and 2001, according to the Volcker report, Vincent received five such contracts from Saddam's regime.

In his guilty plea agreement with the Justice Department, Vincent admitted: "I received those allocations because of the work I had done on behalf of the Government of Iraq in helping set up the oil-for-food program."

* * * * *

Samir Vincent was well positioned for the task at hand when he began his influence and back channel diplomacy campaign with the Iraqis; he had been boyhood friends of two of Saddam Hussein's closest advisers, Nizaar Hamdoon and Tariq Aziz.

Hamdoon, who died in 2003, was Saddam's foreign minister, and Tariq Aziz had variously served as Baghdad's ambassador to the United States, ambassador to the United States, and Iraq's deputy prime minister.

But Vincent also sought to enlist the help of a Washington insider or lobbyist if his efforts were to have any chance of success.

His initial plan to purchase Iraqi oil through the American Red Cross faced opposition from the U.S. government. Vincent's partner at the time, an American businessman named John Venners, suggested that they needed "help from some people that he knew very well" who "used to be high up in the government." Venners recommended William Timmons.

As Time magazine's Michael Scherer recently reported, Timmons is "a Washington institution," having worked as a senior aide to every Republican president since Richard Nixon. He also serves as chairman emeritus of Timmons and Company, "a small but influential lobbying firm he founded in 1975 shortly after leaving the White House."

According to Vincent's testimony, Timmons immediately opened doors for the Iraqi-American lobbyist. He talked to then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger on Vincent's behalf. He also contacted then-Sen. Bob Dole and John Bolton, then-undersecretary of state for international affairs, to discuss Vincent's plan.

In a meeting with U.N. officials, Vincent pressed his case armed with "talking points" that Timmons had written for him. Before using them, Vincent said that he first sent the talking points to Nizaar Hamdoon and Tariq Aziz, with Timmons' approval.

After the meeting, Vincent traveled all the way to Baghdad to report back to Tariq Aziz what had occurred. Later, he had another meeting with Hamdoon and Aziz at the United Nations mission in New York to plan on next steps. Vincent testified he made formal minutes of that meeting, typed them up, and then traveled to Washington to personally give them to Timmons. This was routine practice as Vincent, Timmons, and the Iraqis worked together.

Timmons himself was apparently loathe to meet with Hamdoon or Aziz personally. But virtually the entire time they worked together, Vincent would relay to Timmons what the Iraqis had to say and vice versa.

After Vincent's first meeting with U.N. officials, Aziz and Hamdoon suggested that something called a "non-paper" be presented the next time Vincent met with the same officials. Non-papers are diplomatic communications in which parties can propose positions in writing, but do not have to fear if they leak to the public or press, because they do not officially represent positions of the government.

At the request of Aziz and Hamdoon, Timmons authored the non-paper which Vincent could rely on for that second meeting. Both Aziz and Hamdoon also reviewed the paper before Vincent used it.

On March 15, 1995, Timmons wrote a memo (which is a matter of public record as an exhibit in the case) advocating that they and the Iraqis should enlist the assistance of U.S. oil companies to make their case.

Timmons once again apparently understood that his audience was the Iraqi government. Vincent testified that Timmons gave him the memo knowing that the document was "supposed to solicit the thoughts of the Iraqi government, if this is something they would seriously consider." Vincent dutifully passed Timmons' memo on to Nizaar Hamdoon, he testified.

Weeks later, in April 1995, Vincent was summoned to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

As to Timmons' claims that he kept his distance from Vincent and Park and did not know much about what they and the Iraqis were up to, this exchange between a federal prosecutor and Vincent once again suggests otherwise:

Q: And when you returned to the United States, did you tell anyone about your visit with Saddam Hussein?

A: I told Bill Timmons and Tongsun Park.

Q: Why did you tell Bill Timmons about your visit with Saddam?

A: To let him know that we were talking to the leader of Iraq, and in essence we have access and assure him that any messages we were relaying between Iraqi and Tariq Aziz and anyone else, it was being transmitted to the president, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq.

* * * * *

Presciently, Time's Scherer noted that McCain's own staffers had early concerns that appointing Timmons could prove detrimental to the Arizona Senator's presidential ambitions:

His [lobbying] registrations include work on a number of issues that have become flashpoints in the presidential campaign. He has registered to work on bills that deal with the regulations of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, a bill to provide farm subsidies and bills that regulate domestic oil-drilling.

By tapping Timmons, McCain has turned to one of Washington's steadiest and most senior inside players to guide him in the event of a victory -- but also to someone who represents the antithesis of the kind of outside-of-Washington change he has recently been promising. One Republican familiar with the process said the decision to involve Timmons could become a political liability for the campaign's reformist image, especially in the wake of the controversies over the lobbying backgrounds of other McCain staffers, including campaign manager Rick Davis. "It's one more blind spot for Rick Davis and John McCain," the person said.

Timmons' work to relax international sanctions against Iraq, as well as to benefit financially from Saddam Hussein's regime, may be another such flashpoint.

The Volcker report makes clear that when Timmons first got involved with Vincent and the Iraqis, the lure of millions of dollars was at least one incentive. By early 1992, Timmons and his associates were already "pursu[ing] the purchase of sale of Iraqi oil and the exploration by a consortium of companies of the Manjoon field in Iraq," the report said.

According to the report, the venture was dependent on Vincent's belief "that sanctions against Iraq would be lifted immediately and that the Iraqi government might grant a long-term concession to an American oil company."

Later, when Timmons pressed the case even more aggressively that sanctions against Saddam's regime be eased, he, Vincent and Park hoped to profit as well, according to the Volcker report. "Continuing through 1994 and 1995, Mr. Vincent and Mr. Park, along with Mr. Timmons and others, persisted in their efforts to establish a foothold in the Iraqi oil business," the report stated.

At one point, Timmons even boasted to investigators that it was his ideas that later became the basis for the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

Under that program, the United Nations allowed Iraq to sell its oil under U.N. supervision, with the proceeds placed in U.N. escrow accounts to buy food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people.

However, a major flaw in the program was that Saddam Hussein's regime was allowed to play a role in the selection of oil companies awarded contracts. Because of lax oversight of the program, Saddam's government was able to demand that foreign oil companies -- including American ones -- provide more than $1.7 billion in kickbacks to his regime.

One of the most outspoken critics in the U.S. Senate of the oil-for-food program was John McCain:

"We need to have a full and complete cooperation on the part of the U.N. about this whole oil-for-food program, which stinks to high heaven," McCain told Fox News in Dec. 2004. "We're talking about billions and billions of dollars here that were diverted for many wrong purposes. And this is an example of corruption.

"And by the way, it's an argument, maybe a small one, but maybe an argument that justifies our action in Iraq. Because clearly the sanctions and the framework of those sanctions was completely eroded."

Additional reporting by Patrick B. Anderson.

Question:  Post election – do you have any particular thoughts for the ENERGY/environment policy team membership?  Elgie is prepared to stay on the team – the rest of the group have been proposed for agency/department teams.  Not sure how the campaign advisors will get moved into the process, but have heard indirectly that Jason Grumet figures he will be coming onto the energy policy transition team.  Heather Zickal (former Kerry person) has been in Chicago as the campaign policy person for energy and environment.  It would seem to make sense for her to join the post election energy policy transition team.   Other folks you think we should include?  Thanks, Carol

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/14/mccain-transition-chief-a_n_134595.html

HuffPost: McCain Transition Chief Aided Saddam In Lobbying Effort

By Murray Waas

The Washington lobbyist John McCain has named to head his presidential transition team aided an influence effort on behalf of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to ease international sanctions against his regime.

The two lobbyists who McCain aide William Timmons worked closely with over a five year period on the lobbying campaign later either pleaded guilty to or were convicted of federal criminal charges that they had acted as unregistered agents of Saddam Hussein's government.

During the same period beginning in 1992, Timmons worked closely with the two lobbyists, Samir Vincent and Tongsun Park, on a previously unreported prospective deal with the Iraqis in which they hoped to be awarded a contract to purchase and resell Iraqi oil. Timmons, Vincent, and Park stood to share at least $45 million if the business deal went through.

Timmons' activities occurred in the years following the first Gulf War, when Washington considered Iraq to be a rogue enemy state and a sponsor of terrorism. His dealings on behalf of the deceased Iraqi leader stand in stark contrast to the views his current employer held at the time.

John McCain strongly supported the 1991 military action against Iraq, and as recently as Sunday described Saddam Hussein as a one-time menace to the region who had "stated categorically that he would acquire weapons of mass destruction, and he would use them wherever he could."

Timmons declined to comment for this story. An office manager who works for him said that he has made it his practice during his public career to never speak to the press. Timmons previously told investigators that he did not know that either Vincent or Park were acting as unregistered agents of Iraq. He also insisted that he did not fully understand just how closely the two men were tied to Saddam's regime while they collaborated.

But testimony and records made public during Park's criminal trial, as well as other information uncovered during a United Nations investigation, suggest just the opposite. Virtually everything Timmons did while working on the lobbying campaign was within days conveyed by Vincent to either one or both of Saddam Hussein's top aides, Tariq Aziz and Nizar Hamdoon. Vincent also testified that he almost always relayed input from the Iraqi aides back to Timmons.

Talking points that Timmons produced for the lobbyists to help ease the sanctions, for example, were reviewed ahead of time by Aziz, Vincent testified in court. Proposals that Timmons himself circulated to U.S. officials as part of the effort were written with the assistance of the Iraqi officials, and were also sent ahead of time with Timmons' approval to Aziz, other records show.

Moreover, there was a major financial incentive at play for Timmons. The multi-million dollar oil deal that he was pursuing with the two other lobbyists would only be possible if their efforts to ease sanctions against Iraq were successful.

Vincent, an Iraqi-born American citizen with whom Timmons worked most closely, pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in January 2005 that he had acted as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's regime. Tongsun Park, the second lobbyist who Timmons worked closely with, was convicted by a federal jury in July 2006 on charges that he too violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act.

As part of a plea bargain agreement with the Justice Department, Vincent agreed to testify against Park and others in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. He was the government's chief witness against Park during Park's trial. Park was sentenced to five years in prison after his conviction.

A U.N commission headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker conducted an exhaustive investigation of the oil-for-food program, in which various individuals were found to have paid illegal kickbacks to Saddam Hussein. The findings of the Volcker Commission detail the roles of Vincent, Park and Timmons in trying to ease the sanctions.

* * * * *

Timmons testified that he first introduced Vincent to Tongsun Park and encouraged him to hire Park to work on the deal.

At the time Timmons introduced the two men, Park's notorious background was well known:

In the 1970s, Park had admitted to making hundreds of thousands in payments and illegal campaign contributions to U.S. congressmen on behalf of the South Korean government. Park was indicted on 36 counts by a federal grand jury, but fled to South Korea before he could face trial. All of the charges were later dismissed in exchange for Park providing information about which public officials received funds from the South Korean government.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, not long after Timmons suggested that Vincent hire Park to assist their influence, lobbying, and back-channel diplomatic efforts on behalf of Saddam Hussein's government, much of that effort became increasingly bizarre, corrupt, and - on occasion - illegal.

Vincent testified that Park covertly received millions of dollars from Saddam's government that was supposed to be used to bribe then-U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali to ease international sanctions against Iraq. But both men simply pocketed the money, according to Vincent. (There is no evidence that Boutros Ghali even knew of Iraq's intention to bribe him.)

Investigations by the Justice Department and the Volcker commission disclosed that Park also served as the middleman for a million dollar payment that investigators believed was a bribe for another senior United Nations official. That official in fact admitted receiving the money from Park, but said he did not know that the funds originated with Saddam's regime.

Timmons told federal investigators that he was unaware of these particular activities, and investigators were unable to uncover any evidence to contradict that claim.

Timmons also claimed that he was motivated to push forward with the lobbying campaign with Vincent and Park not only to assist Saddam's regime but also because he believed that his actions would serve U.S. interests, that they would help the people of Iraq obtain needed medicine and food being denied them by sanctions, and would serve to facilitate a rapprochement of relations between Hussein and the U.S. that would be beneficial to both countries.

But there was a financial incentive in play as well. During the same period, Vincent was hard at work obtaining contracts with Iraq to purchase and resell Iraqi oil allowed under international sanctions; Timmons would have stood to benefit financially from those contracts.

Timmons claimed to investigators that any contracts offered to him, Vincent, and Park would be awarded solely on merit, and had nothing to do with their lobbying efforts.

But Vincent told investigators that their work clearly gave them an inside track. And in other instances, in which Timmons was not involved, Vincent profited from lucrative oil-for-food contracts awarded by Iraq as compensation for his effort to buy influence in the U.S. and at the U.N. for Saddam's regime.

At Park's trial, Vincent testified that he, Park, and Timmons stood to make as much as $45 million in profits from one particular oil venture with Saddam's regime had it gone forward. Park testified that he was unsure exactly what percentage of the proceeds each of the three men would have personally received. The deal ultimately fell through.

An investigator who worked on the U.N. investigation of the oil-for-food program told me that Timmons clearly should have or did understand that he was the possible recipient of oil contracts from the Iraqi government because of his lobbying and back channel diplomatic efforts on behalf of Saddam: "He would have to be the most naive person in the world to believe that was not the case," the official told me. "I guess William Timmons is just a natural born oilman. He is either deceiving himself to rationalize what he has done or taking the rest of us for fools."

Between 1997 and 2001, according to the Volcker report, Vincent received five such contracts from Saddam's regime.

In his guilty plea agreement with the Justice Department, Vincent admitted: "I received those allocations because of the work I had done on behalf of the Government of Iraq in helping set up the oil-for-food program."

* * * * *

Samir Vincent was well positioned for the task at hand when he began his influence and back channel diplomacy campaign with the Iraqis; he had been boyhood friends of two of Saddam Hussein's closest advisers, Nizaar Hamdoon and Tariq Aziz.

Hamdoon, who died in 2003, was Saddam's foreign minister, and Tariq Aziz had variously served as Baghdad's ambassador to the United States, ambassador to the United States, and Iraq's deputy prime minister.

But Vincent also sought to enlist the help of a Washington insider or lobbyist if his efforts were to have any chance of success.

His initial plan to purchase Iraqi oil through the American Red Cross faced opposition from the U.S. government. Vincent's partner at the time, an American businessman named John Venners, suggested that they needed "help from some people that he knew very well" who "used to be high up in the government." Venners recommended William Timmons.

As Time magazine's Michael Scherer recently reported, Timmons is "a Washington institution," having worked as a senior aide to every Republican president since Richard Nixon. He also serves as chairman emeritus of Timmons and Company, "a small but influential lobbying firm he founded in 1975 shortly after leaving the White House."

According to Vincent's testimony, Timmons immediately opened doors for the Iraqi-American lobbyist. He talked to then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger on Vincent's behalf. He also contacted then-Sen. Bob Dole and John Bolton, then-undersecretary of state for international affairs, to discuss Vincent's plan.

In a meeting with U.N. officials, Vincent pressed his case armed with "talking points" that Timmons had written for him. Before using them, Vincent said that he first sent the talking points to Nizaar Hamdoon and Tariq Aziz, with Timmons' approval.

After the meeting, Vincent traveled all the way to Baghdad to report back to Tariq Aziz what had occurred. Later, he had another meeting with Hamdoon and Aziz at the United Nations mission in New York to plan on next steps. Vincent testified he made formal minutes of that meeting, typed them up, and then traveled to Washington to personally give them to Timmons. This was routine practice as Vincent, Timmons, and the Iraqis worked together.

Timmons himself was apparently loathe to meet with Hamdoon or Aziz personally. But virtually the entire time they worked together, Vincent would relay to Timmons what the Iraqis had to say and vice versa.

After Vincent's first meeting with U.N. officials, Aziz and Hamdoon suggested that something called a "non-paper" be presented the next time Vincent met with the same officials. Non-papers are diplomatic communications in which parties can propose positions in writing, but do not have to fear if they leak to the public or press, because they do not officially represent positions of the government.

At the request of Aziz and Hamdoon, Timmons authored the non-paper which Vincent could rely on for that second meeting. Both Aziz and Hamdoon also reviewed the paper before Vincent used it.

On March 15, 1995, Timmons wrote a memo (which is a matter of public record as an exhibit in the case) advocating that they and the Iraqis should enlist the assistance of U.S. oil companies to make their case.

Timmons once again apparently understood that his audience was the Iraqi government. Vincent testified that Timmons gave him the memo knowing that the document was "supposed to solicit the thoughts of the Iraqi government, if this is something they would seriously consider." Vincent dutifully passed Timmons' memo on to Nizaar Hamdoon, he testified.

Weeks later, in April 1995, Vincent was summoned to Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.

As to Timmons' claims that he kept his distance from Vincent and Park and did not know much about what they and the Iraqis were up to, this exchange between a federal prosecutor and Vincent once again suggests otherwise:

Q: And when you returned to the United States, did you tell anyone about your visit with Saddam Hussein?

A: I told Bill Timmons and Tongsun Park.

Q: Why did you tell Bill Timmons about your visit with Saddam?

A: To let him know that we were talking to the leader of Iraq, and in essence we have access and assure him that any messages we were relaying between Iraqi and Tariq Aziz and anyone else, it was being transmitted to the president, Saddam Hussein, in Iraq.

* * * * *

Presciently, Time's Scherer noted that McCain's own staffers had early concerns that appointing Timmons could prove detrimental to the Arizona Senator's presidential ambitions:

His [lobbying] registrations include work on a number of issues that have become flashpoints in the presidential campaign. He has registered to work on bills that deal with the regulations of troubled mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, a bill to provide farm subsidies and bills that regulate domestic oil-drilling.

By tapping Timmons, McCain has turned to one of Washington's steadiest and most senior inside players to guide him in the event of a victory -- but also to someone who represents the antithesis of the kind of outside-of-Washington change he has recently been promising. One Republican familiar with the process said the decision to involve Timmons could become a political liability for the campaign's reformist image, especially in the wake of the controversies over the lobbying backgrounds of other McCain staffers, including campaign manager Rick Davis. "It's one more blind spot for Rick Davis and John McCain," the person said.

Timmons' work to relax international sanctions against Iraq, as well as to benefit financially from Saddam Hussein's regime, may be another such flashpoint.

The Volcker report makes clear that when Timmons first got involved with Vincent and the Iraqis, the lure of millions of dollars was at least one incentive. By early 1992, Timmons and his associates were already "pursu[ing] the purchase of sale of Iraqi oil and the exploration by a consortium of companies of the Manjoon field in Iraq," the report said.

According to the report, the venture was dependent on Vincent's belief "that sanctions against Iraq would be lifted immediately and that the Iraqi government might grant a long-term concession to an American oil company."

Later, when Timmons pressed the case even more aggressively that sanctions against Saddam's regime be eased, he, Vincent and Park hoped to profit as well, according to the Volcker report. "Continuing through 1994 and 1995, Mr. Vincent and Mr. Park, along with Mr. Timmons and others, persisted in their efforts to establish a foothold in the Iraqi oil business," the report stated.

At one point, Timmons even boasted to investigators that it was his ideas that later became the basis for the United Nations' oil-for-food program.

Under that program, the United Nations allowed Iraq to sell its oil under U.N. supervision, with the proceeds placed in U.N. escrow accounts to buy food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods for the Iraqi people.

However, a major flaw in the program was that Saddam Hussein's regime was allowed to play a role in the selection of oil companies awarded contracts. Because of lax oversight of the program, Saddam's government was able to demand that foreign oil companies -- including American ones -- provide more than $1.7 billion in kickbacks to his regime.

One of the most outspoken critics in the U.S. Senate of the oil-for-food program was John McCain:

"We need to have a full and complete cooperation on the part of the U.N. about this whole oil-for-food program, which stinks to high heaven," McCain told Fox News in Dec. 2004. "We're talking about billions and billions of dollars here that were diverted for many wrong purposes. And this is an example of corruption.

"And by the way, it's an argument, maybe a small one, but maybe an argument that justifies our action in Iraq. Because clearly the sanctions and the framework of those sanctions was completely eroded."

Additional reporting by Patrick B. Anderson.

Not even sure how to react to this article, since there’s almost nothing in here that’s accurate.

Daily Telegraph:
Barack Obama's team is briefed by Bush staff on after warnings about a terrorist attack
Senior aides to Barack Obama have been meeting George W.Bush's staff to begin planning a smooth transfer of power.

By Tim Shipman in Washington
Last Updated: 9:26PM BST 18 Oct 2008

Officials from both campaigns have been asked to briefings after warnings from US intelligence that terrorists and rogue states will seek to exploit the power vacuum following November's presidential election.

For the first time in American history the FBI has begun vetting likely officials of the next administration before the election, to ensure they have security clearance to deal with crises on day one.

Intelligence chiefs expect an attempt to emulate the terrorist strikes on Britain when Gordon Brown took power and are concerned that Russia or Iran could use the 77 days of paralysis between the election and the inauguration on January 20 for acts of international brinkmanship, like the invasion of Georgia.

An official involved in the transition discussions told The Sunday Telegraph: "There has been no specific threat but the assessment is that someone will try something.

"It could be a terrorist attack on US assets overseas. It could be the leader of a rogue state chancing his arm. Putin and Ahmadinejad have form."

The transition of power in the US is a chaotic process. More than 1,100 political appointees in senior posts have to be approved by the Senate, a process that can take months.

On Wednesday the current White House chief of staff, Josh Bolten, chaired a meeting of senior White House staff and representatives of both Mr Obama and his Republican rival John McCain.

President Bush's creation of this Presidential Transition Coordinating Council, the earliest ever, is designed to avoid a repeat of the situation on September 11 2001, when only one third of his national security appointees had been approved by the Senate, nine months into his presidency.

Martha Kumar, director of the White House Transition Project, an independent group that advises the transition teams of both campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph: "The times of changing of power are soft times, times of vulnerability. Just look at what has happened around the world, including in Great Britain.

"You had the failed bombings in London and then the attack at Glasgow airport three days after Gordon Brown took office. In Spain the Madrid bombings were three days before the presidential election."

There have been particularly intensive efforts to make sure Mr Obama has his national security team in place, not just because he is widely expected to win the election on November 4, but because intelligence analysts believe America's enemies are more likely to try to take advantage of Mr Obama's international inexperience than they would of Mr McCain.

A senior official in the Obama camp, whose name has been submitted for FBI vetting, said: "We will be ready and we will be seen to be ready."

He said that Mr Obama is close to finalising plans for his first 100 days in power - which will include major moves on the economy, healthcare and Iraq in his first week, designed to make his priorities clear to Americans.

He is planning a series of early interventions to stamp his authority on the economic crisis. This will include legislation proposing a $300bn stimulus package which would be published before President Bush has even left the White House, so that it can be passed as soon as he takes power.

Mr Obama is also planning executive orders that do not require legislation on his first day in office, which could include plans to promote renewable energy resources and create jobs.

His transition team, which is reportedly much more extensive and active than Mr McCain's, features 10 working groups in different policy areas to convert campaign promises into concrete legislation. It is chaired by John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff who runs the Centre for American Progress, a think tank long seen as a Democratic administration in exile.

Mr Podesta is working closely with Michael Signer, a former foreign policy aide to John Edwards in charge of homeland security affairs. Mr Podesta and Jason Furman, one of Mr Obama's two most influential economic advisers, have already held talks with sceptical conservative Democrats to line up the votes to pass a stimulus package.

Mr Obama has also worked to cultivate a close relationship with the Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, and personally asked him to help out during the transition, sparking speculation that he might keep Mr Paulson in post for the first year of his presidency.

Ms Kumar said: "There are things that a president can do immediately that establish his brand of leadership and help establish with the public what the priorities are.

"Reagan issued executive orders at the luncheon following the inauguration. He didn't even wait to get to the White House. He wanted to show how seriously he took the issue of the economy."

FBI vetting is also under way on 100 people from both campaigns, including Susan Rice, expected to be made the second successive black woman national security adviser after Condoleezza Rice; Greg Craig, a Washington lawyer tipped to become Mr Obama's chief White House counsel and his likely White House chief of staff; and the former senator and campaign chairman Tom Daschle. If Daschle prefers to become Health Secretary, Obama's current chief of staff Pete Rouse, nicknamed the 101st Senator for his connections on Capitol Hill, would take the job.

Other key national security officials will include Denis McDonough, chief foreign affairs adviser to the campaign and Richard Danzig, a secretary of the Navy under Clinton.

John Kerry, the Democratic candidate four years ago, and his fellow senator Chris Dodd, a failed candidate this year, are vying to become Secretary of State.

Mr Kerry, an Army veteran, is also a contender to take control of the Pentagon, but many expect that post to go to a Republican, perhaps the maverick senator Chuck Hagel. Colin Powell, a former secretary of state and chairman of the joint chiefs could return to government if he endorses Obama, as many expect. The veteran Democratic Senator Sam Nunn's name is also in the frame.

Again, more fiction than fact in here . . .

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-transition20-2008oct20,0,6265181.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."

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

tom.hamburger@latimes.com

Times staff writer Peter Spiegel contributed to this report.

Attached are the energy and TIGR working group memos.

Attached are the energy and TIGR working group memos.

Faiz did a post on Think Progress.

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:00 AM, Chris Lu <clu@barackobama.com> 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."
>
>