Imagine being around for an open house at your own home. Now imagine that the person coming to tour just beat you out for your job. Also you live in the White House and you are President.
In what has to be one of the weirder moments of any presidential transition period, President George H.W. Bush got to experience that very feeling when President-elect Bill Clinton came knocking in November 1992.
Days after his November 3 victory, Clinton called on Bush at the White House. Ross Perot — who received more than 19 million votes as the Independent presidential candidate — was not invited. In the photo above, you can see Bush and Clinton smiling as Clinton looks at someone off camera. It almost looks like a symbolic passing of the torch.
The transfer of power from Bush to Clinton wasn’t just one from Republicans to Democrats. It was the transition from a President of the 1980s to one of the 1990s. Clinton was the first US President since the end of WWII to enter the White House without the specter of the Cold War. He was two decades younger than Bush. As President, he would go on to face events like the Oklahoma City Bombing and NATO’s intervention in Bosnia.
For more on the political climate and major events of the 1990s, check out CNN’s new original series, “The Nineties,” premiering on July 9 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.