Obama's unusual transition: Already a co-president

America has never seen anything quite like this: The president and president-elect acting like co-presidents, consulting and cooperating on the day's biggest crises.

"It's pretty unusual," said George Edwards, a presidential expert at Texas A&M University, in College Station.

What Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer calls "the split-screen presidency" is the result of several historic forces converging this fall:

* The 24-7 nature of the global economy, which demands timely reaction.

* Incoming and outgoing presidents who have personal and political reasons to show that they can manage a crisis.

* A president-elect, Barack Obama, who "believes in strong government and wants to get things under way immediately," said William Leuchtenburg, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor who's written extensively about the presidency.

* A lame-duck president, George W. Bush, who's leaving office voluntarily. "Bush was not defeated. That makes for an easier relationship," Leutchtenburg said.

This transition lacks the formality — and the coolness — of the last two transfers of power that occurred during tough economic times, the 1980-81 change from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan and the 1993 end of George H.W. Bush's term as Bill Clinton took office. Both new presidents then had defeated the former ones.

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