ASHINGTON - George W. Bush should begin planning his presidential transition right about now. But the Texas governor doesn't dare to. Some snooping reporter might get wind of it and suggest he's overconfident.
Al Gore should start his transition, too. But the vice president doesn't dare to either. Some political rival might make hay over preparations for the beginning of an administration.
As a result, the two major-party presidential candidates are laying out proposals for governing, but are not laying the groundwork actually to take over the government.
Congress steps in
It is a curiosity in the American political system; we spend 18 months figuring out whom we're going to elect and then provide 10 weeks for the winner to get ready to assume office. It is, too, a peculiarity in the American political culture; presidential candidates count noses before Election Day, but they don't count chickens before they're hatched.
Washington may finally have come up with an antidote to the American aversion to political planning. Congress is considering legislation that would encourage the major-party nominees to begin planning their administrations before Election Day, something that only Ronald Reagan in modern times dared to do. By providing funding to both parties for the effort, Congress would legitimize the process - and help save time and embarrassment for future presidents.
''We can pay the parties and candidates now for transition planning,'' said Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institution, ''or pay the costs of delayed appointments, missed opportunities, and bad decisions later.''
For a century and a half, newly elected American presidents waited from early November until early March before taking office. The four-month interregnum, required because of the difficulty of winter travel in the days before the DC-3 airplane, allowed for plenty of time. It also allowed for plenty of mischief. The difficult relationship between Herbert Hoover, who lost the 1932 election, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won it, not only made for political awkwardness - but also wasted precious time at the most perilous period of the Great Depression.
Since then, presidents have been inaugurated on Jan. 20, which has made for frosty events (John F. Kennedy's inaugural went on as scheduled in bitter cold in 1960, but Reagan's second one was moved inside in 1984). But the exposure to brisk conditions has also meant brisk transitions. If Bill Clinton had been able to begin planning his administration earlier, he might have avoided the spectacle of watching two potential attorneys general withdraw from consideration before he was able to settle on his third choice, Janet Reno.
''Clinton's transition was an acknowledged disaster,'' said Light. ''Those celebrated combatants in the Clinton campaign war room spent exactly zero minutes thinking about what they would do after the election, short of keeping journals for future kiss-and-tell biographies.''
Easing the transition
Representative Stephen Horn, a California Republican who heads the House government-management subcommittee, is alarmed by the ''missteps and outright errors'' made by newly appointed administration officials. He's already steered legislation through the House to provide federal funds for orientation sessions for senior appointees of newly elected presidents, an idea that was endorsed by General Andrew Goodpastor, staff secretary to President Eisenhower; John Gardner, secretary of health, education and welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson; and the late Elliot Richardson, who held four Cabinet positions under President Nixon.
''Mistakes and unnecessary controversies during a transition or the first weeks after inauguration can haunt a new administration for some time,'' said Pendleton James, who was Reagan's personnel director during the 1980-81 transition, at a congressional hearing last fall. ''They detract significantly from the ability of a new president to address that agenda effectively or to develop a good working relationship with Congress.''
Meanwhile, Pew Charitable Trusts is underwriting a project to assure a smooth White House transition after the November election. One element: new computer software to help appointees sort through the paperwork.
But the candidates themselves can play a role even if Congress doesn't act. Gore and Bush, or their representatives, can meet and agree that both sides should begin planning for the transition only one of them will make. Right now they are spending much more time trying to get the job than figuring out how they would do the job. Politics, as former governor Mario M. Cuomo of New York used to say, is poetry - but governing is prose. It's not too early to start drafting the prose.
