Rupert Cornwell: Returning to the past is way forward for Obama

At first glance it looks like the ‘Clinton restoration’ that Barack Obama’s victory had seemingly forestalled. In fact however, Mr Obama’s selection of many aides associated with the last Democratic president obeys a deeper logic – of ensuring his administration hits the ground running, something Bill Clinton signally failed to achieve when he took power in January 1993.

According to Politico, 31 of the first 47 transition or staff posts filled by Mr Obama have gone to erstwhile Clintonites. All but one member of the president-elect’s 12-person Transition Advisory Board fall into that category. So does Gregory Craig, the Washington lawyer and former No. 3 official at the Clinton State department, named for the key post of White House counsel in the incoming administration.

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Mr Craig joins Rahm Emanuel, a top White House aide under Mr Clinton who will be Mr Obama’s chief of staff, and John Podesta, head of the transition team and Mr Clinton’s last White house chief of staff between 1998 and 2001.

In the next few days the ‘restoration’ could be complete, should Hillary Clinton be given the job of Secretary of State – a distinct possibility, and one welcomed by many leading Republicans, including the best known surviving holder of the office, Henry Kissinger. The main potential obstacle, Democratic insiders say, is the financial dealings of the former President that could present an insuperable conflict of interest, blocking his wife’s appointment.

But even the vetting team that will scour the records of the former President and of his philanthropic foundation has a distinct ancien regime flavour. It is headed by Christine Varney, another high ranking veteran of the Clinton administration.

But although Obama the candidate positioned himself as an outsider uncontaminated by the ways of the capital, his reaching back to the recent Washington past makes perfect sense. Not only does it help mend lingering rifts between the Obama nd Clinton camps after the hardest fought primary contest of recent times. It is also shows that the next President is determined not to repeat a crucial mistake of his two Democratic predecessors.

The lesson of both Carter and Clinton administrations is that prior government experience is essential if a new White House team is to be effective. In 1977, Jimmy Carter brought with him a so-called ‘Georgia Mafia,’ superloyal to the new President, but which quickly antagonised the Democratic barons who then ran Capitol Hill.

Something similar happened 16 years later when Bill Clinton arrived. Unlike Mr Obama, he waited almost two months before making key White House staff appointments. When he finally did, many were old associates from Arkansas – like Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty, a childhood friend of Mr Clinton but who was out of his depth as chief of staff, and replaced after barely 18 months in the job.

The same cannot be said of Mr Emanuel, who as an Illinois Congressman became one of the most powerful Capitol Hill barons when the Democrats regained control in 2006, or of Mr Podesta, who in 2003 set up a Democratic-leaning think tank in Washington that served as a virtual government-in-exile for former Clintonites.

For Mr Obama however, the most salient point is not that they have ties with a former President with whom he still has a somewhat uneasy relationship. Far more important, they both know how Washington works.

Indeed, that the ambitious and sharp-elbowed Mr Emanuel agreed to take the White House chief of staff post says much about where real power currently lies in the US system of government. Though widely tipped as a future Speaker of the House, he has put that career on hold to take an unelected position, serving only at the pleasure of a President.

If anything, Mr Obama’s first steps signify not so much a Clinton restoration as a Chicago renaissance. The Windy City is hometown of the next President, while both Mr Emanuel and Mr Podesta are native Chicagoans. Chicago has long had an inferiority complex vis-à-vis New York, Washington and Los Angeles. Finally it too is enjoying a moment in the sun.

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