In general, any incoming administration must carefully examine ('vet') its nominees for high public office.

Naming a transition team varies with the intentions of the candidate; some candidates have been careful to name a transition team as much as a year in advance.

The 'transition' involves the transfer of power from one president to another. In recent times, the incoming President has designated a Director of the Transition, a team leader, to oversee and administer the orderly transfer of power.

Certainly, the Bush Administration will rely in the first instance on its friends, since it would be both illogical and counterproductive to reward its adversaries.

A Bush Administration will, I believe, enjoy a better relationship with the new Congress, although President-elect Bush will be faced with real challenges in getting along with the Congress.

The choice of personnel, perhaps the most important choice (because 'people are policy'), never proceeds according to plan, but there have been some successful transitions that upheld high standards.

Temporary teams of trusted people are generally sent to all Departments and to major agencies of government to assist in planning and to acquaint the incoming administration with the civil servants and bureaucracy that will remain in place in the new Administration.

In general, any incoming administration must carefully examine ('vet') its nominees for high public office.

The Leader will be a person with the management skills to coordinate the activities of the Team, and to assure that the Team remains faithful to the objectives of the incoming President.

If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love, clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or your country with them.

Usually, those persons closest to the incoming President will be the main leaders of the Transition effort. They are most familiar with his policies and practices, and are able to interpret his wishes regarding the structure and staffing of the new Administration.

At the same time, the Reagan Administration assured that the main elements of policymaking were in the hands of competent loyalists, thus assuring a successful launch and a highly successful first year.

We who have been born and nurtured on this soil, we, whose habits, manners, and customs are the same in common with other Americans, can never consent to - be the bearers of the redress offered by that Society to that much afflicted.

In this context, I believe it is an imperative for the new President to select and install his team as quickly as possible, and this does not imply that he must or should appoint members of the 'other' party to his Cabinet, which could contribute to inaction and inefficiency.

Our system provides for a winner to take office on January 20th, and he is expected to take command of the ship of state. Failure to do so, characterized by hesitation and indecision, will harm the national interest.

If it is widely assumed that the new President cannot move forward simply because of a narrow victory, there can easily develop a sense of unease and uncertainty, adversely affecting every sector of American society, our economy and the perception of other nations.

Unlike the Reagan and Bush Administrations, with but one exception, the Clinton administration failed to reach out to Republicans in creating a new team, and eventually paid a political price.

'Favoritism' is always a factor, and pressure always build for the appointment of friends of influential supporters of the President, or for the nominees of powerful Member of Congress from the incoming President's party.

This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and gospel is free.

The Reagan Administration, generally regarded as having conducted the most successful Transition of modern times, had managed during the election campaign to build bridges to the Democrats in some areas, notably foreign and national security policy.

I would argue that the next President, either Bush or Gore, should strike a 'national' posture, exhibiting generosity toward the defeated opponent, but proceeding with determination to implement an agenda.

The single most important aspect of the Transition involves the selection of personnel to manage the transfer of responsibility. The law provides roughly ten weeks to accomplish this process.

A skilled Transition Team leader will set the general goals for a Transition, and then confer on the other team leaders working with him the power to implement those goals.

Jimmy Carter began his planning in the early summer of 1976, Ronald Reagan a year prior. The Clinton Administration, elected in 1992, lingered in naming its team, and as a result, took almost a year to staff its ranks.

By Rice's own standards, the war was well underway by the time he took office. He was a war president the moment he took the oath. But did he act like one?

Well, I think that those of us in public life that are trying to do a good job, and that are faced with this popular new game that the media has of being critical of everything that anybody in public office does probably are thin-skinned.

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people.

Since I'm allergic to various things, the army wouldn't accept me during the war, and I got into the Office of War Information, which sent music to Europe.

Don't try to be somebody you're not because it doesn't work. If you try to be this perfect person or perfect persona of what you think that somebody should be when they're involved in public office, it's just not going to work. Just be yourself, stay true to your core values, and really just stay abreast of the issues.

From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares... yes... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.

That the apostolic office is temporary, is a plain historical fact.

No man should have a political office because he wants a job.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

The right way to reign in healthcare costs is not by applying more government and more controls and making it more like the post office, it's by making it more like a consumer-driven market.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

You get elected, often, if you're a woman, on the strength of the women's vote; then you get into office, and you have to adapt to an overwhelmingly male environment.

I couldn't sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

Laboring men can perform for themselves the office of becoming their own employers.

If you win the Oscar, you get to go into just about anybody's office for a month.

Things on the whole are much faster in America; people don't 'stand for election', they 'run for office.'

For the past several years, the Meth Caucus has worked to engage the Office of National Drug Control Policy on this issue. We have tried to get their attention that meth requires a strong, comprehensive Federal policy.

In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.

He who uses the office he owes to the voters wrongfully and against them is a thief.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

My father had not even completed high school when he started as an office boy working for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and I am not sure that my mother completed high school.

In the Astronaut Office we're never totally out of training, we always keep our hand in it. But after five years, things have changed and so it's been good to get back into the flow and relearn a lot of things.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.