One of my final tasks before leaving for Washington was personal. Chelsea had a pet frog she had initially gotten for a school science project. While we were taking our cat, Socks, with us, Chelsea decided she wanted to free the frog so that it could lead a “normal life.” She asked me to do it, so on my last day in Arkansas, I jogged down to the Arkansas River, took the shoebox the frog was in, climbed down a steep bank to the water, and let the frog go. At least one of us was returning to normal life. The rest of us were excited about our new adventure, but apprehensive, too. Chelsea hated to leave her friends and the world she knew, but we told her she could have her pals come to stay with us often. Hillary was wondering how she’d feel without the independence of a paying job, but she was eager to be a full-time First Lady, both to pursue the policy work she loved and to perform the traditional duties of the office. She had surprised me with the amount of time she had already spent studying the history of the White House, the various functions she would be responsible for there, and the important contributions of her predecessors. Whenever Hillary undertook a new challenge, she was always on edge at first, but once she got the hang of it, she relaxed and enjoyed herself. I couldn’t blame her for being a little nervous. I was too.
The transition period had been hectic and hard. In retrospect, we did a good job picking a cabinet and sub-cabinet officials who were able and who reflected the diversity of America, but I made a mistake in not appointing a prominent Republican to a cabinet post as a demonstration of my desire to build bipartisan cooperation. I also kept my commitment to put the economy first, with a first-rate team, the economic summit, and a decision-making process that was well informed and subject to thorough debate. And as I had pledged, Al Gore was a full partner in the incoming administration, involved in all the strategy meetings and the cabinet and White House staff selections, while maintaining a high public profile.
During and after the transition, I was criticized for not following through on my campaign commitments to cut middle-class taxes, halve the deficit in four years, and take in the Haitian boat people. With respect to the first two issues, when I replied that I was simply responding to the worse-than-expected deficit projections, some critics said I had to know the Bush administration was lowballing the deficit until after the election, and therefore I shouldn’t have used official government figures in putting together my economic plan. I didn’t take those criticisms too seriously. By contrast, I thought some of the criticism on the Haitian issue was justified, given the unqualified statements I had made during the campaign. Still, I was determined to bring more asylum seekers to the United States safely, and eventually to restore President Aristide. If I succeeded, my commitment would be fulfilled. I was also being criticized for appointing Zoë Baird, for my tendency to want to know everything that was going on, and for taking too much time in making decisions. There was some merit to the hits. Zoë hadn’t concealed the nanny issue; we had simply underestimated its significance. As for my management style, I knew I had a lot to learn, and I had used the transition to absorb as much about as many aspects of the President’s job as I could. For example, I don’t regret a minute of the time I spent coming to grips with the economy during the transition. It stood me in good stead for the next eight years. On the other hand, I had always had a tendency to try to do too much, which also contributed to physical exhaustion, irritability, and my well-deserved reputation for tardiness. I knew that the transition was only a foretaste of what the presidency would be like: everything happening at once. I would have to delegate more and have a better-organized decision-making process than I had as governor. However, the fact that so many sub-cabinet positions had not been finalized had more to do with the fact that the Democrats had been out of power for twelve years. We had to replace a lot of people, we were committed to casting a wide net for diversity, and there were a great number of people with a claim to be considered. Moreover, the required vetting process had gotten so complicated that it took too much time, as federal investigators pored over every piece of paper and ran down every petty rumor to find people who were bulletproof in the face of political and press assaults. Looking back, I think the major shortcomings of the transition were two: I spent so much time on the cabinet that I hardly spent any time on the White House staff, and I gave almost no thought to how to keep the public’s focus on my most important priorities, rather than on competing stories that, at the least, would divert public attention from the big issues and, at worst, could make it appear that I was neglecting those priorities.
The real problem with the staff was that most of them came out of the campaign or Arkansas, and had no experience in working in the White House or dealing with Washington’s political culture. My young staffers were talented, honest, and dedicated, and I felt I owed many of them the chance to serve the country by working in the White House. In time, they would get their sea legs and do very well. But in the critical early months, both the staff and I would do a lot of on-the-job learning, and some of the lessons would prove to be quite costly.
We also didn’t give messaging anything close to the amount of attention that we had in the election, though it’s harder in government, even for the President, to get out the message you want every day. As I said, everything happens at once, and any controversy is more likely to dominate the news than a policy decision, no matter how important the decision might be. That’s what happened with the Zoë Baird and gays-in-the-military controversies. Though they took up only a small part of my time, people watching the evening news could be forgiven for thinking I spent my time on nothing else. If we had thought more about this challenge and worked harder on it during the transition, I’m sure we would have handled it better.
Despite the problems, I believed our transition had gone reasonably well. So, apparently, did the American people. Before I left for Washington, an NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll gave me a 60 percent favorability rating, up from just 32 percent in May. Hillary was doing even better; 66 percent saw her as “a positive role model for American women,” up from 39 percent in the earlier survey. Another poll taken by a bipartisan organization said that 84 percent of the people approved of my performance since the election. President Bush’s job approval was up, too, nearly twenty points, to 59 percent. Our fellow citizens had regained their optimism about America, and they were giving me a chance to succeed.