The Note: The Hand-Off

Nov. 10, 2008— -- When No. 43 hosts No. 44 Monday, the two men come to the White House riding competing historical crosscurrents -- and it's not just that one is coming and one is going.

The future of the Republican Party hinges on the argument over whether the GOP got where it is because it was growing too big or thinking too small.

The future of the Democratic Party hinges on the argument over whether President-Elect Barack Obama will get where he needs to by acting big or aiming small.

The challenge for Obama and the team he's putting together is in finding a Goldilocks balance, when plenty of folks want it hot, and plenty of others want it cold. He needs to deliver on his promises for change, while not eroding the promise of the broad change to politics his election meant to so many.

The new guy gets a big platform, and a bigger opportunity. Early on, he's conveying the sense of measured action, after months of stasis in the executive branch.

"The American people, right now, need help economically," incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told ABC's George Stephanopoulos Sunday on "This Week." "It is essential that we focus on the stress and strains on the middle class."

Bipartisanship, now: "The challenges are big enough that there's going to be an ability for people of both parties, as well as independents, to contribute ideas to help meet the challenges on health care, energy, tax reform, education," Emanuel said. "So that is the tone. That is the policy. And that is exactly how we're going to go forward."

But pacing is everything: "The debate between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach has flavored the discussion among Mr. Obama's transition advisers for months, even before his election," Peter Baker writes in the Sunday New York Times. "The tension between these strategies has been a recurring theme in the memorandums prepared for him on various issues, advisers said."

"The argument for an aggressive approach in the mold of Franklin D. Roosevelt or Lyndon B. Johnson is that health care, energy and education are all part of systemic economic problems and should be addressed comprehensively. But Democrats are discussing a hybrid strategy that would push for a bold economic program and also encompass other elements of Mr. Obama's campaign platform, even if larger goals are put off."

The pressure builds, already: "Saying Obama's decisive election victory amounts to a mandate, many of the president-elect's staunchest supporters, including labor leaders, are looking for strong, swift action on many of the sweeping proposals -- including reforming health care and increasing the minimum wage and indexing it to inflation -- that he pushed on the campaign trail," Michael A. Fletcher writes in The Washington Post. "But at the same time, Obama will be under pressure from fiscal conservatives and others to restrain spending, which could cause him to move slowly on his most ambitious plans."

Can you smell the conflicts coming? "Interest groups are furiously drawing up wish lists for the incoming Obama administration, many of them hoping to cash in on the investments they made -- in volunteers, political support, and campaign contributions - in Obama's commanding win," The Boston Globe's Scott Helman writes. "But given the nature of Obama's victory, which was propelled more by a grass-roots army of millions than by traditional Democratic constituencies, is the president-elect really indebted to anybody?"

Quick action will raise howls from Republicans (who can't wait to accuse Obama of excessive partisanship).

But slow action risks eroding the special qualities of civic engagement that made an Obama administration possible.

"Timidity is a far greater danger than overreaching, simply because it's quite easy to be cautious," E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post column. "President-elect Obama can spend most of his time fretting warily about the shortcomings of past presidents and how to avoid their errors. Or he can think hopefully about truly successful presidents and how their daring changed the country. Is there any doubt as to which of these would more usefully engage his imagination?"

And why not do even more than you've promised, starting now? "Why wait until January to get started?" Lawrence Downs writes in a New York Times op-ed, calling for a national volunteer effort to start immediately.

"Mr. Obama has troops for the job: tens of thousands who spent months on the ground campaigning for him, becoming conversant in the issues and comfortable with approaching strangers to enlist their help," Downs writes. "It would be a shame to have poured all that idealism -- and money, don't forget -- merely into one man's election. Mr. Obama could set loose his army right now to start bringing about the change he promised -- by working for local nonprofit groups and causes."

Obama has a mandate, yes -- but not a blank check. And it will get harder when George W. Bush isn't going to be in Washington to kick around anymore.

"The election turned partly on what they did right, but also on what Republicans did wrong. And there is no assurance that Democrats will confront a similarly star-crossed opposition in elections to come," John Harwood writes in The New York Times.

"The country remains very evenly divided," said Harold Ickes, a former deputy chief of staff in the Clinton administration. "The lease on the office space is likely very short."

President Bush and President-Elect Obama share that office space Monday, with the Obamas set to arrive at the White House at 2 pm ET -- after Obama ran a campaign that harshly targeted Bush's leadership.

"On Monday, Mr. Obama, Democrat of Illinois, may find himself conveniently forgetting those words -- or at least delicately stepping around the fact that he had said them," Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in The New York Times. "As the president-elect, he will be welcomed at the White House as an honored guest of its current occupant, Mr. Bush, for a meeting that could be as awkward as it is historic."

"Both parties have one eye on the history books, as an outgoing president airbrushes the epilogue and the arriving one prepares the prologue," Time's Nancy Gibbs writes.