people, or having access to one, i mentioned jamie, who had worked in that area in previous administrations and had relationships valuable, having some executive leadership responsibilities in the past, and being able to devote full time. this is a very amending role. i became convinced it needed to happen in washington. that is where the government will ultimately stand up and that is where the resources of the gsa will be under the presidential transition act. i have acknowledged on many occasions, the times you have a chance to surround yourself with people like the former cfo of

i became convinced it needed to happen in washington. that is where the government will ultimately stand up and that is where the resources of the gsa will be under the presidential transition act. i recognize those who view it as being important or otherwise, and lastly, not a job seeker. it is important that person also be able to come at this and walk away from it and leave the administration, turn over the keys, on inauguration day. >> perfect ear to your point, chris, you have, the governor said, a stellar record in the private sector. i am interested in learning what you think about the federal government. what do you think about the transition? [laughter] >> can i just say there is no one person who deserves more knowledge meant in the way this unfolded band chris? chris was, as i mentioned, the cfo of microsoft and general motors. this is a highly sophisticated businessperson. our relationship was one where i was able to focus on many of the things i alluded to. chris made it work.

there want to acknowledge were many people who played roles that were important. it is important that we ate knowledge publicly is very important function as the executive director of the transition. you are free to ask you -- you are free to speak. [applause] >> as a citizen of principles, implying you need large, complicated project, in the private or public sector, and really, we apply those principles to this project. that is why it is so successful. down into simple terms, start with a clear objective of what you are trying to achieve. have a vision of a clear one you can communicate to everyone about what you are trying to achieve. secondly, break that down into very manageable and discrete and parallel and sequential tasks. a coordinated set of tasks that added up to the thing you are trying to achieve. third, some great people. all that sounds simple. it actually is. if you apply the principles, it is amazing how much you can achieve and how well you can organize things.

the parallel i would say is the previous role i had was very similar to the role i had here. the previous role as cfo and vice chairman of general motors. i came to help the company get back on its feet again. the role i principally had was to organizes the resources associated with the company's ipo. that was about a 69-month roger with a very defined target, in this case, taking the company public. we raised $23 million. paid back some of the money it had invested. soon, principles, a time frame, the same number of people. really, it was the same set of principles we had. a clear objective. take the company public. in this case, mitt romney, and everyone associated with him, transition to the federal government. we then broke it down into a series of tasks. we had five clear deliverables, against which we were planning

and then we break those five deliverables down into a clear series of steps and responsibilities through the work clark did. there were great people. jamie and the team she built, we started with three people and ended up with close to 500. i have to say, anecdotally, i was incredibly impressed by the quality of people we were able to attract. a surprise coming from the private to public sector? a pleasant surprised -- surprise was how good people were. the quality of people who came in, and the dedication. 85% of the people who came in were volunteers. people were not coming in to make a lot of money out of this. we were able to get first-class people who are passionate about

it and coming in because they believed what they were trying to do. it was just outstanding. the general principles of the private sector were applied here. in the public sector, to me, the only thing you have to toggle around is the balance between how much you make, definitive, and how much is literally set out, and how much is flexible for individual initiative along the way. we did course corrective. we set out with a clear objective. inevitably, things came up. as the campaign change. since came along. that is really the only difference in any individual project. stick with a certain set of product -- principles and you are rigorous about them. you commit them to any -- any

large objective can be reached. >> any things you had wished you had known you learned through hard labor? >> i wish i had this book at the start. [laughter] it would have been a lot easier the second time round. we were learning on the fly. we have the governor's leadership and knowledge base. you alluded to the conference we had. that was useful. we had people looking into resources, people like josh, which was fantastic. this was one of the key learnings. you should not have to relearn. you should not have to grab a bit of information here and there and there. that is just not a good way of approaching this. one of the key objectives the governor alluded to for us doing this and documenting it is, people will not do exact the same way we did.

hopefully, they can pick up on the knowledge and not have to drag pieces. you think about how important the u.s. government is and how important the transition is, it is something that should be as well researched and systematic as it possibly can. >> one other way you deserve cordis -- kudos is that you did the work, collecting the information now instead of waiting 3.5 years when the boxes are strewn and you do not know what they mean. it is a great contribution that you did this while you were doing everything else. that is amazing and commendable. >> in all fairness, we had a couple of months we did not expect. [laughter]

>> for clarity's stake -- sake, you started this project in september, collecting the information. you knew you wanted to document the work you were doing. i think that is a great contribution. >> we would have documented whether it was successful or not. >> can we take one minute to focus on the legislative? we talked a little bit about the 2010 transition act and the opportunities it provided you. are there things beyond the direct support at the point of the convention, beyond that, that you found useful? to add onto that, are there things things you think going forward when we talk about moving it forward and not rolling it back, are there additional tweaks that can be made you think would benefit future transition efforts? >> there are areas where time will refine processes. there was, for example, written to -- written into the law, a

requirement that we negotiate understanding. i suspect it took longer the first time than in subsequent years to do that. one of the big contributions of the presidential transition act of 2010 was providing access to federal agencies to do security clearances, at a certain level, early. there is a need from the election forward to have people who are cleared, and rather than clearances required, to receive sensitive and classified information. having the ability to do that weeks in advance, in certain situations, was a critical and important response.

again, i would technology the justice department and others who were involved in the process, did their job in a professional way. we can streamline the process still. it is important. when you are dealing with the days ticking away, and election is like a fuse burning. it will happen. if a day that is lost is a day that is wasted, in terms of readiness. being in a position to improve the processes, not that they were done poorly, but they had not been done before, and now they have, some discussion in advance would continue. there may be legislative tweaks. there are not -- there are things i am not prepared to speak about at this point, but we have to refine it, go back to congress, and say here's what we have learned. you may have some? >> we do need to formalize some things that are in formal.

it worked very well. we have great corporation in the white house. this is, like the governor mentioned, the transition. there were things we learned that could become more formalized and documented so future transitions do not have to start from scratch. we do not need the department of transitions. [laughter] so i would not be adding a lot of people or creating new positions or adding a layer of bureaucracy to the process. having said that, in particular, when you know there will be a transition, there are certain things that happen on an informal, ad hoc basis, that are

more systematic, and would allow either party to transition. >> one thing i have thought about hypothetically, in 2016, two of these were going on at the same time. i hope the gsa is planning to have them in separate locations. there is a lot of sensitivity about that. for understandable reasons. that represents more cost. this is a very small amount of money by comparison. as an insurance premium on continuity of government and the stability of the united states. i do not think that is overstated in any way. so, as we move into the time between now and 2016, farnese be given to the unique situation, where you will have two streams -- teams transitioning simultaneously and making preparations for that. >> it is a perfect wine. darren, from gsa, who ran the effort tom is not here today. he did an exceptional job. i would put in my own commercial plug-in here. it seems to me we need to have more effort to highlight the good things some of the agencies are doing. that was a vital effort and received very little attention.

when something goes wrong, is a huge amount of attention. we need both. what is wrong and what is right. in prior presidential years, there have been allegations of candidates measuring the drapes, celebrating early, but why did the not happen in 2012? collects the presidential transition act of 2010 provided the necessary authorization for us to be doing this in a forward-thinking and proper way. that is part of the contribution of the act, simply the legitimizing of the process. that is an important contribution. it is also a challenge for any transition to maintain the degree, the proper profile. it was not a surprise, but it is noticeable how willing people are to be involved in the process.

it is a function of how important it is. people like to talk about it. there were a handful of situations where our discipline broke down, in not a way i -- created problems. it is a combination of the 2010 at, then i think we work hard maintaining the proper profile. future something transitions can learn about and not allow it to become a matter of conversation. there will be a certain amount of lyrical banter that goes on around it. it will become one of the traditional things that happened in every campaign. people will still talk about it and i will try to make -- and will try to make a political issue out of it. the combination of the act and the prof will -- proper profile.

>> you set the right precedent. that will hopefully move forward and be on. i will ask one more western and ask chris to move up. as you alluded to earlier, much of the challenge of setting up a new administration, how did you prioritize the positions? you political appointees, cannot do them all. what kinds of wallabies were you looking for? >> we started by assuming we had to stand up the white house staff as our first priority. we had to have a national security and economic team. it was, in many ways, driven by our general instruction. what did we have to have in place in order to deliver and execute on the things mitt romney had committed to do as a

candidate? we were prepared, on the thursday following the election, to begin the process of choosing a cabinet and white house staff. we had chosen, as i indicated, five to eight. theere prepared to start day after the election. we prioritized according to our general instructions. and our issues we needed to deliver during the first two wednesdays. >> at the worst for you, maybe we can invite to come up and join the conversation here. thealluded earlier to cooperation you felt around the issue. again, from a nonprofit, nonpartisan perspective, it is one of the things i most admire

that you have a set of dedicated people committed to making the government work right, and leave aside the political differences, and recognizing we all want our countries to succeed. this is an area with remarkable cooperation. it is really a great leisure to have the three of you appear. this must be an interesting experience for you, having the same as 2012. you have many -- any in -- initial opera -- observations. >> thank you for having me.

i want to acknowledge josh and the president bush's administration. president obama has been appreciative about the important --peration and the

that issue domestic policy teams. >> one thing that popped into my head when you are talking about the white house, you came up with number, the number of hours you would have available to reach the president, 120 hours. you had to use every one of those hours carefully and wisely. thing i found a the transition. how to handle the press. there were no press folks. there was a lot of confusion about who should handle it.

the campaign said we do not want to do with it because they were trying to handle elections. you said, just do not talk about it. mark recommended the future, using, what is your best wisdom on this? >> it was to have a single person after the election took place. i felt strongly then and still today the transitions should not have a voice. the campaign needs to remain as the principal voice of the candidate, the face of the effort, that on the day the election occurs, and there is a transition, then you do move out of campaign mode into the mode of the transition. it was at that point that i continue to feel there were times when there would be a leak, about somebody who was going to be a secretary. and so and so is vying to become this in the white house. we felt it best to have the least amount said about it.

and to reference it in the campaign. we have sent disciplined messages about when that occurred. to my knowledge, the only conversation that was ever held about who would do what in the administration between the candidate and another person, was when paul ryan was appointed the nominee as vice president. we want to minimize speculation and be in a position to say none of the decisions have been made and would not be made. inevitable speculation. we treated it as such. we kept the spokesperson role and i think that was the right decision. >> one of the important principles is this was the transition project. we had no role, no voice, no substance. when you take the general view that we not -- we are not in charge of policy or announcing

any positions because no positions were decided on, it takes a lot of heat out of the equation. as we get to the stage, something like this is presumed to be done from both parties, now that we have had three, 4, 5 elections where people have done something similar, slightly different approaches, but essentially the same, people i guess it is natural they have a transition. it is natural they will start organizing for something that happens the day after you -- the day after the election. there is nothing they are doing that is relevant to the campaign itself. if you take those principles and take away a lot of the heat associated with the leaks and who is doing what, we were quite clear we were making no decisions relevant to either the campaign or the running of the government. that makes the media approach a lot easier. of course it is happening. of course there are a lot of people doing that here it there

are people organizing themselves looking at issues associating with familiar policy. to the specific question, the thing i would add, over and above what we talked about, the selection of the initial people on the project is absolutely fundamental. from them proper gates all the other decisions. also talk about the role of the governor and the chairman, executive director, and the senior team and how they are selected is absolutely critical. election, before the most people are not worrying about that. campaigns need to invest time. if i get the right people involved at the senior level, i can pretty much forget -- forget about it for six months and worry about it when it is relevant. >> the governor talked about the qualities important for someone leading the effort. you have expanded the circle,

talking about a large group of people. you talk about jamie and the connections and relationships she had. what other skills or qualities do you think are essential to the core grouping? i do not know if you have a view on that. >> i think it has got to be a mixture. the best team and we have that quality on our team, a mixture of political knowledge, knowledge of washington. you have got to have that. you have got to have people with project management-type skills. you have got to have a mixture of knowledgeable about the campaign and the candidate. it is unusual you would ever get all of those three things and one person. your team yet -- your senior team collectively has to have those things. that is nirvana, getting all

those three things together in a team. that is the best balance overall. >> i will echo the comments here. we were blessed with a remarkable transition chairman. you could not have asked for somebody who better understood how the government works and has one of the keenest minds for policy in washington. in addition, we had a group of senior folks working on the transition, some folks from the private sector, some folks who have worked in government before. we benefited from people who served in the clinton administration. the administrator would help us with policy on this transition. carol recounted her experiences getting binders full of materials as the incoming cabinet nominee and saying, i do not need all this stuff. that helped us refine what we were asking the review team to go out and find and report back.

>> we learned from that. that was an improvement. we have resolved to do the same thing, to keep ourselves narrow. notionollow-up on your on, if there are other folks here who have something to comment on, we have a couple of microphones. start, tom? >> thank you. first, i tell you a story. [laughter] during president reagan's transition, you talk about clearances and stuff. he talked about his landing on the moon. 10 days after the election, down came senator smith. defenset said, how did gets though far behind offense? and missiles and spears and what have you.

smith interrupted and said, let me tell you what is going on down here. are you cleared? [laughter] the governor turned to me and said, i think they cleared you last tuesday. [laughter] i apologize for that. my question is, you had all been talking about washington experience, senior people who know the system and know what is going on. when we were running around the congressional affairs, the first rule was, no lobbyists. who the devil knows congress and how to run the system in congressional affairs than a bunch of lobbyists, yet the how did that decision come down? consequently, we did not have the best and the brightest in that operation. how did that decision come down and why?

>> every campaign in the last few years wrestles with this problem. that becomes a hot topic. we included that we would establish our policy after the election. we had not done so. i'm not suggesting it would have been markedly different. that is a problem i wish we could solve. some of them more capable people in washington, the people with great experience, need to be there. we did not actually have to deal with it. maybe chris, i will toss it to you. [laughter] >> the governor is to play for that. during the campaign back in 2007, when senator obama was running, about lobbyists serving, by definition, you had to follow that one. i think you raised a legitimate point. some of the people, the best to understand policy, lobbyists.

>> martha can go. wait one second. we will have a microphone. >> thank you. i wondered what role governor romney had in the transition planning? what information did you bring to him? what directions did he give you? >> the most important directive we received from governor romney, i alluded to earlier. we referred to as general instructions. it is in the book, laying out the priorities he wanted to be doing, the first 200 days. i would then meet with governor romney, essentially once a week. i would typically fly out to the campaign, spend an hour or two with him, generally on the plane or his hotel room. i would keep them up to date. we used a one-page project manager as the basis of the report. we would look for anything

yellow or red. he would want to know about that. but, everything we did was driven by the general instructions. then, there were a couple of occasions where we had to begin to get down to some specific groups of people to consider. so, we had input from him on that. there would be times i would ask his opinion about a particular policy matter that could be reflected in our deliberation. we kept policymaking in boston, but we had execution. execution often, how that is done, makes policy. there would be times i would interact with him basically once a week. >> one of the priciples we had, we had to be tightly connected to the campaign. we could not the a tax on the

campaign. we cannot take a lot of the time for things to get the general principles, to ensure we had someone running the transition that governor romney was very confident in and knew. it was incredibly important. he was spending more than an hour or so a week thinking about what was happening on the transition is too much. not that it was not critically important. he was setting the framework for what was happening in november in his primary and single-minded focus had to be on winning the election, not worrying about what he had to do when he woke up in the morning. >> a couple of things we have not mentioned that we should i alluded to the inter-agency processes we organize. in many cases, you would have changed from different agencies working to solve a similar problem. who have totally different perspectives. that is why you have interagency processes. it would be my role to sit in in

the place of what would be governor romney if you were there. there were times i would say, we are working on this issue. this is my instinct. does it match yours yet so we would talk about that so i was in a position to then weigh in on his behalf. tim adams ran that process. tim had wide experience with the treasury and the white house and a number of other places in the federal government. he did an exceptional job in managing the process. another would have been personnel. bill hagerty, who is from tennessee, a great job in being able to organize the systematic process. there would be times when we would say, these are the characteristics we are looking for in this position. we rarely got to the point of saying, this is the kind of person we are looking at. he was very useful in being able to say, this is what i want in that role, as opposed to, this person is what i want in the role.

>> good morning. let me ask the question. the question is, we never got a shot in the confirmation process. we never transition to a transition team. the confirmation process is the greatest hindrance to staffing of government. going forward after election day, obviously, the inaugural. in this process, of confirmation, i remember sitting around the readiness project, wondering whether or not we should go on landing teams. the rumor was if you go on a landing team, people would say you were thinking i will be confirmed for this position. do not go on the landing team of a position you have been qualified for asked to consider or may want to pursue. the question then, back to the

question, is, what lessons can we take from the obama campaign or from our effort on the readiness project for moving beyond simply coming up with names, and working with desk united states senate to get senior staff appointees, senate- confirmed appointees, in place shortly after the inaugural? >> let me acknowledge one of the products of the zealousness and others. it essentially created a streamlined process for committee vetting.

that is still in the process, putting together, those of us who have and through confirmation can tell you if you are in a position where multiple committees have a level of jurisdiction, they all have their own financial disclosures. they all have their own questionnaires. you spend hours and hours vetting. so, to his credit, the legislation reduces by 160 or so positions that require senate confirmation. then they will ultimately streamline the process. we actually started the development of, because the process was not in place, we were not able to complete. this is a project for someone to do. we thought there was a need for a means by which a person who was interested and qualified in doing public service would get themselves for nomination in a preclearance way. i will fill out all the papers, i will have the financial

disclosure, the 84, all of those things free done. and i will go through a little process where they will tell me the realities of what this will look like. we are going to tell people in more detail what they can express in terms of intrusion into their personal life and what life as a public servant is about early, as opposed to finding that out later and withdrawing. you will have to have the following problems to overcome. it would be a good thing if you could say to a candidate, when you go through ethics clearance, they will make you sell that. that would be a great thing. it would speed the process up. i think between now and the next three years, if there is an area where additional focus could be made, it is in streamlining the process of getting good people who are eligible into a place of preclearance, so that you do not

have to use the 77 days to go through that and end up with 100 people running the entire federal government who have been cleared as late as may or june of the following year. >> i would add, and it will not surprise anyone, the confirmation process is broken right now. it is broken in a lot of different ways that people have been trying to fix. it is not only the lack of resources and how long it takes to vet people. it is the number of forms that get filled out. the quirks of getting anyone to the u.s. than it. we struggled with this in the beginning of 2009. when you are dealing with an economic crisis, as we were, you had, in those agencies, a secretary, maybe a chief of staff, and people minding the shop. the recovery act had been -- they were trying to get out the door. that would be a huge problem. the question you are getting to is how one gets a broader

diversity of people to serve in government. that is something we struggle with. when the transitions are using people who have served the government, and even when we expand our circles, you are still getting the same group of people. one of the things we try to look at where people in the private sector, people who had experience in state and local government, people around the country. it is an evolving process. >> one more question, that would be great. >> speaking about the organization and clearly established a strong culture, post election, you have merged a campaign organization in with its own strong culture of people who work hard. what were your plans for doing that merger and keeping all of the things you have built up to that point going? >> steve, do you want to talk about that?

>> this is a very important focus for all of us. one of the very important things we did, prior to the election, is make sure people on the campaign focused on the campaign and people on the transition focus on a transition. there was a clear rule in place. do not ask about your job. we all have a job to do right now. if you win the election, that will change. in preparation, what we did was we look to the number of places. we looked very clearly at all of the different positions in the campaign already. all the different positions in the transition already. then, some other areas, as well. people that may have been in peripheral roles. then we took a look at what we would need in the white house and what we would need in the transition. we actually had a line by line extremely detailed listing of

what we would need and, potentially, where the people would come from. we knew, for example, that we had fairly significant, fairly well-established legal functions to both places. we had a good understanding of how the two organizations come together. we knew there were a lot of junior level people on the campaign that may be able to come in and help with certain aspects of the transition. that would tailor to their skill sets. we had detailed processes in place. the plan was, the day after the election, to pull our heads together and start working very specifically on who would work each roles. to an 85% agree, we knew generally where the people would come from. i say probably within a week or so, we would have had most of those very specifically

populated. we also had a process where we were going to to give people badged, vetted -- all that stuff fell through pretty well. the last thing i would say, broadly, in all of this, is it is real important when you are looking specifically at the 75 days, to know there is a lot of very detailed things that have to happen. one of the things i think is important to do is to really think forward and say, ok, what will it take to vet all these people, what will it take to find time on the president- elect's calendar to look through policy matters? what will it take to make sure he has time for congress and for media? and really sort of, like you would in any business, almost do a contingency planning. and lay out the details. just like everything else, the

plans may change, but we are going through in detail of how it is likely to go. it is a whole lot easier to adjust. you have all the pieces of the puzzle on the table. it is a matter of moving them around. >> jamie, do you want to comment? >> there could have been a hiccough, if we had been successful, in bringing the campaign people in. as we have talked about, there was a clear division between the campaign, focusing on their job, and us focusing on hours. while there was a meeting and conversations weekly with the campaign policy shop, as far as the lot of roles steve was talking about, scheduling, anything to do with communications, those functions, the people who were playing those roles in the campaign, we

really could not distract from their job. it would have been helpful to be able to have conversations, maybe three weeks out, so we could have prepared, so it could not have been probably that week before we could have gotten him on board. that was something i was concerned about. we alluded to this with the confirmation process. the whole focus is on getting them through senate confirmation. one of the things i had dealt with was with people. they have concerns as well. as governor leavitt said, if you can have some soft conversations about what this is going to be like, to come to washington, to take on the role of government service, i think -- if we had been successful. some people are going to remove themselves.

some campaign folks want campaign work. and what government service will going to be about, they could have perhaps counted on. i was the only thing that i would whack -- that i would -- theseple try to guide principles. as long as we stopped to the fundamental risible, it made life easier. this principle was -- anyone who was on a campaign with guaranteed a job on the transition if they wanted it. there were five or 6 -- >> the inauguration. >> there were 500 or 600 roles in the transition, probably an equal number of roles in the inauguration. over 1000 people we needed. some total people on the campaign was less than 1000. so there was plenty of work to do. anyone who was on the campaign that wished to have a role, we

would find one for them in either the transition or the inauguration. printable number one. prince will number 2 -- no one was guaranteed a role in the administration. -- people confused that those concepts and or missing. but if you kept saying often enough, they got it. [laughter] with was a 75-day period a lot of work to be done, and anyone who wished to help on that work, we would find a role for them. but there was a defined during a 75 days for determining who were the people who were going to work with the administration or the department or whatever. just because you had worked on me campaign or the transition was no guarantee you would then have a role there afterwards. clearly, you had the opportunity to do it. as long as we stop to those two whociples, many people tried, it made life enormously easier. transitionrt of this

'snerally is managing people ambitions and their and pieties. -- and their invitees. -- their anxieties. >> what was exciting to me starting the mixture of skill sets a must we had governor leavitt, who had deep knowledge chris liddell from the private sector. the team of young potential political appointees. as i looked at people to come in and help with the transition, we tried to keep that mixture of washington old hands that knew the agencies, but a lot of people that were new to washington, new to potential government service. a lot of young people that were ready to roll.

i think it made it unique because we did have a lot of people that had never been engaged in politics or government service that potentially would have served. plotting those conversations, filling up the good work early, and having some sort of system to get them ready in case they were going to be nominated was important. like to make two suggestions -- i think it would be useful to hear from drew on the question that tom reference. .ou're feeling on that then brian, i think it would be valuable for you to comment on the interest that has developed among people who work together on a team to keep this policy or together in terms of the network of resources that was generated. >> i think there were two issues in the legislative outreach

group that we had to focus on that most people don't see. mentioned one, and that if the lame-duck session. there was all this focus in the campaign on day one what we would do during the first 200 days. you had to react to what was going on at the time. lame-duck during president obama transition, there were economic challenges. we would've had the same thing with the fiscal cliff. we had to get through the whole lame-duck in order to get to the 200 a first. that was a big ordeal that we had to set up, decisions to make the day after the election, go up and brief resume liked romney and chairman ryan at the time. the second issue was going past, christine were very helpful on was setting up the confirmation process. ambitious goal of

getting 26 nominees through during the first week of the inauguration. that meant that you had to have vetted, youit -- 26 had to have them scheduled to with the senators, it was up to read to get them all scheduled. what we had done as we created to 10of about seven people assigned to each one of the 26 potential nominees. so we had a whole wing at the transition readiness office at the time that would be designated to each of the people. an ands was going to be or miss task. as tom said, historically, as you have walked people through the nomination process, you've had a old washington hands. we found as as we could that were unregistered lobbyists at the time to shuffle these people around the senate.

i think that was one of the areas where people don't appreciate the amount of work that goes into that whole process. we also did not have a communications staff, see you had to figure out how you are going to announce the table. we were working very closely with eve preston and his operation as we mapped out that process. thatwould just mention there has been some consequence of the defeat is that we try to make some lemonade out of it. we had all of these policy teams. we had about 10 teams. they were organized by subject. , from iran and syria burner policy issues. on election day, each team had roduced a 15 to 20 page paper and how we implement the 200-day

plan. there was a feeling after the election -- it would be a shame to let all of this go to waste. so after the election, these teams have largely stayed together. we now have six teen -- 16 teams organized by topic that are now working, trying to help the hill and republican governors and try to be a broader service to the republican party. that work has continued. there was a thought on the readiness product that people do not want to lose. they wanted to keep it going. we have done a lot of work with house leadership, working with speaker boehner and cantor's office, being a resource to them on issues that are coming up and make full use of the people in the readiness reject.

-- readiness project. >> last question and then we will close. >> thank you. my question was about and it ready may. but another question is -- the american people have been pretty clear about their feeling that there needs to be change in washington. that government needs to be theytured in a way that view is more responsive to their needs. both candidates in the last election picked up on this theme. my question is -- to what extent did the respective transitions, including the obama transition, planning reflect this in strict -- reflect this interest, and to what extent is it appropriate for future transition teams to begin to plan for the kind of change that perhaps the candidates are talking about and the american people want?

>> i will start. we certainly in the 2008 campaign talk about transforming washington. policies ended up getting put on the back burner because of the economic crisis and so we ended up moving to things like transparency later in the administration. the broader issue about how you make government, how you make transitions more open to the government -- to the public, and something that we have thought about. it is one of the subjects -- we did not spend enough time on before election day. the use of technology. the next fourto years. i cannot even envision how you a transition in technology if you are not skilled and technology. you go back and look at resident clinton, resident george w. bush, they held a summit around the country during their transition period. i can imagine the next president-elect doing a skype or google hangout or twitter townhall.

we made a conscience effort that we were not going to have people send us resumes in paper input themave to re- all again. we created a thing on our website that you could submit them all. we did the address on the internet. i think technology gives you a lot of ways to include more people in the planning of a transition, make it more transparent. acknowledge the fact -- i think that jamie mentioned it, that is getting a mix of people and disciplines. we work hard to bring new ideas to the american people. one of the things we did, and i still believe was the right thing to do, is we kept policy in boston. that is where the new ideas came from. our job was to say -- we have ways to influence that process.

they had policy teams that had been developed of people outside of government who were injecting those ideas. once those had been done, our job was to figure out how to work with the federal government to make them happen. endith that, i just want to with a round of applause and thank you for your contribution. [applause] i know you are committed to this process, and i hope you work with the proper -- the partnership going for to making next round even better. >> we should mention that people can get this on amazon.com. it is available to them. the workted knowledge that clark did along with daniel. and chris. they were very instrumental in the assembly of this and deserve to be acknowledged. >> to every much.

-- thank you very much. [applause] >> i feel the same. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> in a moment, a look at the day's news on "washington journal." this morning on c-span2, coverage from book expo america eric -- america. that is at 8:00 a.m. eastern. at insurance look premiums. the group center forward is reading a report on the effect the health care rolls could have -- states.e live coverage of the a: 30 eastern. coming up this monerning, a look at the yahoo! news corporation. olivier knox will discuss the medianews.

then chris moody on some of the congressional stories he is covering. later, white house correspondent rachel rose hartman talks about president obama's agenda in his second term. ♪ good morning and welcome to "washington journal" on this thursday, may 30, 2013. president obama returned today from a fund-raising check in chicago. in his allies, a reporting that he lands to nominate republican james komi has head of the fbi. this morning, "washington journal" will visit ddc bureau of yahoo! news. would like to share how you get your news. what about social media? have your habits changed? share your thoughts by giving us the call. democrats --(202) 585-3880. republicans --