Hillary Clinton is only about 7 points up on Donald Trump in the latest polls, but she’s already filed paperwork to launch the official Clinton-Kaine White House Transition Team, with Clinton crony John Podesta at the helm.
And while Donald Trump may be having a tough time getting staff on the ground in key states, Chris Christie has been dutifully preparing the way for Trump to take over the Oval Office.
But if they both intend on running any transition operations in DC, they may have to share office space — an arrangement that might make for a great sitcom, but won’t be comfortable for the rivals.
Thanks to a new law signed in March, the White House is required to prepare for the incoming President, even if the old one hasn’t quite moved out yet. And they have to provide office space to the incoming administration beginning as early as the summer before the election.
Obama’s team is taking the edict to heart. Friday, Denis McDonough, President Obama’s chief of staff met with both candidates’ teams, and this week, assigned them to work in a Pennsylvania Avenue office space just a few blocks from the White House. Since they’ll have to work with White House staff to ensure a smooth entry — and may have to assign more than 4,000 individuals to Federal appointments — they have to share White House staff. And to do that, they’ll have to sit in the same room.
So far, the arrangement doesn’t seem to bother either candidate, though they’re both woefully late on transition plans — at least compared to Mitt Romney. In 2012, Romney began his transition process in April, assigning top staff to a DC office and preparing to take over.