Before the Oath

The seminal book on presidential transition, Before the Oath will enhance the body of knowledge surrounding transitions and prove very helpful to future transition teams. -- Dan G. Blair, National Academy of Public Administration Martha Kumar has more inside White House experience and is better qualified to write this book than any other scholar. She has made herself a resource on presidential transitions, providing candidate transition teams from both parties historical and analytical material on transitions and White House organizations. The book's scope of analysis is comprehensive. Kumar provides an excellent developmental view of presidential transitions from legal, political, administrative, and legislative perspectives. -- James P. Pfiffner, George Mason University, author of The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running No one knows more about presidential transitions than Martha Kumar does. In Before the Oath, the lessons Kumar gleans from the Obama transition reflect her sensible, nuanced, and sophisticated understanding of politics. This volume is an essential contribution to the study of presidential transitions. -- George C. Edwards III, Texas A&M University, author of On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit

Kumar's lively account of lessons learned and pitfalls encountered during past presidential transitions provides an essential road map for presidential aspirants and their advisers, as well as campaign workers, federal employees, and political appointees.It's one of the hallmarks of American democracy: on inauguration day, the departing president heeds the will of the people and hands the keys to power to a successor. The transition from one administration to the next sounds simple, even ceremonial. But in 2009, as President George W. Bush briefed President-elect Barack Obama about the ongoing wars and plummeting economy he'd soon inherit, the Bush team revealed that they were grappling with a late-breaking threat to the presidency: U.S. intelligence sources believed that a terror group with links to Al Qaeda planned to attack the National Mall during the inaugural festivities. Although this violence never materialized, its possibility made it clear that well-laid contingency plans were essential. Political scientist Martha Joynt Kumar uncovered this secret peril while interviewing senior Bush and Obama advisers for her latest book. In Before the Oath, Kumar documents how two presidential teams - one outgoing, the other incoming - must forge trusting alliances in order to help the new president succeed in his or her first term. Kumar enjoyed unprecedented access to several incumbent and candidate transition team members, and she combines in-depth scholarship with one-on-one interviews to put readers squarely behind the scenes. Using the Bush-Obama handoff as a lens through which to examine the presidential transition process, Kumar interweaves examples from previous administrations as far back as Truman-Eisenhower. Her subjects describe in vivid detail the challenges of sowing campaign ideals across a sprawling executive branch as Congress, the media, and external events press in. Kumar's lively account of lessons learned and pitfalls encountered during past presidential transitions provides an essential road map for presidential aspirants and their advisers, as well as campaign workers, federal employees, and political appointees.