CQ Press's Guide to the Presidency Online Edition
Posted: 11/7/2008
In the time between the election and the inauguration of a president, the nation's capital bustles with speculation and intrigue. To ensure a smooth transition, the incumbent president invites the president-elect to the White House, and the new chief executive and incoming staff receive a battery of briefings on matters ranging from budget deficits to U.S. military alliances. All the while, the new president's transition team pores over resumes and considers legislative strategy.
Media and academic accounts stress the cooperative nature of the transition period. Only in the United States, political analysts say, can the government be turned over to political opponents with such good cheer and cooperation. Transitions rarely involve active recrimination, and seldom is there a struggle over the legitimacy of the electoral outcome like the disputed Bush-Gore contest in 2000. The transition is a rare celebration of a stable democracy based on political parties that differ on specific policies but achieve consensus on the most important matters of state.
CQ Press's Elections A to Z Online Edition
Posted: 11/7/2008
Five presidential contests stand out as "watershed elections" or crucial turning points in American political history. They are the elections of 1800, 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932. Each led to a long-lasting shift in party power and a fundamental change in national policy.
In 1800 Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party defeated incumbent President John Adams of the Federalist Party with 53 percent of the vote. This was the first time in the modern world that an incumbent national executive was removed from office by a peaceful revolution at the ballot box. Jefferson's ascension to office confirmed the success of the fledging American political system and it also set the stage for the two-party system.
