Selected Events 2008

Presidential Transition Center Of Attention

Consul Seward explaining what is on a ballot

November 18, 2008. In two separate events on November 18 at the Grenzland Eichsfeld museum on the western border of Thuringia, Leipzig Consul for Public Affairs James Seward talked with students and with the general public – altogether about 50 persons -- about the U.S. presidential campaign and the current transition process. While Germans have heard much about the election campaign and the candidates, little attention has been paid to the practical business of transferring executive power from one set of hands to another. Echoing President-elect Obama’s words that we “have only one president at a time”, Consul Seward explained that the president-elect’s biggest job before his inauguration on January 20 is to find the right people to fill several thousand leadership positions in the executive branch of the government.