And in 1992, newly elected President Clinton waited too long to hire his top White House staff and moved too quickly and sloppily to begin hiring Cabinet officials, according to his aides. The result was that Clinton relied too heavily on campaign advisors to build a government, aides said.
Obama, in contrast, has named most of his top staff aides -- including veterans from that Clinton White House -- and is working with those staffers to help build out the rest of the administration. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a Chicago congressman and former Clinton aide, is considered an expert in policy and the politics of Capitol Hill.
"What Obama has done is to build the circle around him responsible for managing the decision-making, and now he is working from there," said Terry Sullivan, an associate professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of a consortium of scholars who study White House transitions. "I don't know whether he is sending signals that he is ready to govern, or that he's just becoming ready to govern."
Obama also has set the scene for quick action on policies that might stem public anxiety.
On healthcare, he will rely on two people: his Health and Human Services chief, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a master of the legislative process; and his new budget director, Peter Orszag, a healthcare policy expert with credibility on both sides of the debate over how to make insurance more affordable.
On immigration, an issue viewed by business groups as a key economic concern because of their need for foreign laborers, Obama can rely on his likely choice for Homeland Security secretary, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, known for pragmatic views on the issue and support for tough border enforcement.
"These are not political flacks," said Robert Reich, a Labor secretary in the Clinton administration.
Panetta credits Obama for sending strong signals in a time of crisis, but he adds that nothing in the transition matters as much as the messages when he is actually the president.
"The ultimate test of whether we can change is whether he can govern," Panetta said. "We won't know that until he walks into the Oval Office and makes the decisions that tell us who he really is."
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peter.wallsten@latimes.com
