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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.