What Can Obama Do With The Office of the President-Elect?
by John Little on 25/11/2008Not much really. Obama may appear presidential (it depends on who you ask) but the Office of the President-Elect doesn’t grant him any real authority:
Obama has employed over 500 staffers to assist in his transition operations — working from a nondescript office building in downtown Washington and from locations in his hometown of Chicago.
His transition team has received a budget of $12 million — $5.2 million of which was allocated by Congress, and the rest from private donations of under $5,000.
As president-elect, Obama is also given the same highly classified intelligence briefings that President Bush receives on a daily basis. And Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden get full Secret Service protection, which Obama also received during the Democratic primaries and general election campaign.
But the “Office of the President-Elect,” while critical in building the future government, has no official power — which Obama himself acknowledged during his victory speech in Chicago on Election Night.
“It is an office — it’s just a quasi-government office for planning the takeover of the government,” said Stephen J. Wayne, a professor at Georgetown University’s department of government.
“Obama has no formal power as far as the existing government is concerned, but he has a lot of informal influence, which President Bush has encouraged,” he added.
Wayne compared the function of the “Office of the President-Elect” to spring training in baseball. “It doesn’t count in the standings, but it does contribute to a team’s ability to do well from day one,” he said.
In short, Obama has the authority to prepare his developing administration for greater authority so that they can hit the ground running. Unfortunately, they’ll be heading left.
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