How Would George W. Bush Govern?
Transition to Governing Project

January 13, 2000

Transcript prepared from a tape recording

Panelists:

Hon. John Engler, governor of Michigan

Albert Hawkins, budget director, Office of the Governor of Texas

Carl Leubsdorf, Washington bureau chief, Dallas Morning News

Sen. Bill Ratliff (R), chairman, Texas Senate Committee on Finance

Jay Root, Austin bureau chief Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Rep. Steven D. Wolens (D), chairman, Texas House Committee on State Affairs

Proceedings:

MR. ORNSTEIN: Good morning to you all. I’m Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute. I want to welcome you to the fourth of a series of sessions "How Would They Govern," looking at the presidential candidates, the qualities that they would bring to bear, if elected, in governing in this political process. This morning: How Would George W. Bush Govern?

These sessions are a part of the Transition To Governing Project, a project of the American Enterprise Institute in conjunction with the Brookings Institution and the Hoover Institution. The larger project is an attempt, in the era of the permanent campaign, where campaigning itself is crowding out governing and where issues that are more campaign-related have tended to drive out considerations of governing, to bring governing back into the discourse and to improve the process as we move towards governing from the election from the election in November to the inauguration, the convening of the new Congress in January.

We hope that in a campaign where, normally, what is discussed is the detailed positions on issues that candidates take, along with some rather shallow questions of personality or issues of what illicit substances they may have experimented with in their youths, that we can look at their backgrounds, experiences, and interactions, and what qualities they have that would bear on their ability in what is, after all, the major question in an election, choosing people who can govern and what they can do in that regard.

These sessions are going to be joined by a succession of other things that we're doing with this project. We have books coming out, some time in the near future, a book of essays on the permanent campaign and its origins and future, a book which will bring together the transition memos written for a series of presidents and presidential candidates by the dean of presidential scholars, Richard Neustadt, which is being complied, with additional material that he will provide, by another distinguished scholar, Charles O. Jones of the University of Wisconsin, who joins us here, and we will also focus on a book that is being produced independently by Fred Greenstein of Princeton University--in April, we'll hold a session--a book called, "The Presidential Difference," in which he looks at the last six presidents, and the different qualities that make a difference for presidents, and what that will mean for the future as well.

We will have other seminars and a number of other activities and will focus also on the transition process at a later stage.

This project is supported, generously, by the Pew Charitable Trusts. I want to thank them, and I would like, now, to introduce my co-director in this enterprise, Tom Mann of the Brookings Institution.

MR. MANN: Thank you very much, Norman. I'm pleased, and Brookings is pleased to join with AEI and the Hoover Institution, with support from Pew, in sponsoring this series of discussions of how would they govern. As Norm said, it's part of a larger effort to recognize the emergence of a permanent campaign in American politics and to try to improve the conditions for governing, in spite of it.

Just this past week, The Brookings Review's Winter 2000 issue, "The State Of Governance In America 2000" was released. The last chapter, written by Norm and me, has a series of questions, governing questions for the 2000 campaign, and I'm delighted to say in each of the three sessions we've had thus far, we've managed to focus debate on those very questions.

Some of you may have seen the piece by Rick Berke in this morning's New York Times saying that personality, not policy, is what's on the minds of voters in New Hampshire.

Personality can be quite instructive, but the question is, How does it connect with the practical dimensions of governing?

Do candidates have a capacity to articulate a vision for the country, and a conception of the presidency and its role in the American system of separated institutions competing for shared powers? Does each candidate recognize the contextual dimensions of leadership? The nature of the times, the public wishes, needs, and engagement in public affairs. The balance, and, in this case, very narrow partisan and ideological balance in Congress. The structure, resources, and tactics of all those other interests that are seeking to shape policy making. After all, that's what the permanent campaign is about.

And then matters pertaining to executive temperament, thoughts about organizing the White House and the administration. Views of the role of the career civil service, and how a new administration plugs into the existing, indeed, permanent government in Washington. Who their trusted advisers are. How much they appreciate the difficulties of making appointments and getting those appointees confirmed by the Congress. Their decision-making styles in matters pertaining to foreign policy.

And, finally, an appreciation of the need to think seriously about governing and transitions before the election is over.

Now, we can't expect these dimensions to absolutely dominate the campaign debate, but they should enter into it, and I believe the four sessions, last week and this week, concluding today with a discussion of how would George W. Bush govern, has put these considerations on the table.

We will do our best and we hope you will do your best to see that they get some attention in the months ahead. My thanks to David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, who I think we would all conclude have been superb moderators. To today's distinguished panelists. I can't imagine ending on a stronger note. And to my colleagues in the Transition To Governing Project, especially Norm and John Fortier. Thank you.

MR. ORNSTEIN: Thanks, Tom. One little housekeeping note, particularly appropriate in this week of AOL/Time-Warner. The transcripts of each of these sessions, in full, will shortly be on the AEI Web site, which is www.aei.org/governing. So for those of you who want to come back to this, it will be pretty easy to do so.

A word about the format. We have followed the same format in each of these sessions, a format, let me note, again, that's designed to shed light without heat, but at least with some entertainment which we have had on the governing process, or the governing characteristics of these candidates.

We have had six panelists, two closely associated with the candidate, two practitioners who have worked with and interacted with the candidate in the process of governing, and two journalists, one who's covered the candidate back in the home state, and one from a broader, and Washington perspective.

Let me introduce the panelists and then our moderators, starting over at the far end, my far left in this context.

Jay Root is Austin Bureau Chief for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He's been covering government and politics there since 1996, covering the state, Texas state legislature, the Branch Davidian standoff at Waco, the Houston city hall, and currently covering Governor George Bush.

Before coming to the Star-Telegram, he was a reporter in Texas and in Washington for the Houston Post, and a correspondent for Agence-France Presse, the French wire service.

The Honorable Bill Ratliff is a state senator representing the 1st District in Texas, first elected in 1988, and the first Republican to represent his district since reconstruction.

He's chairman of the Texas Senate Finance Committee, serves on the Educational and Natural Resources Committees, and some of the, of course, prominent initiatives of the Governor have come through those committees.

Senator Ratliff is a consulting civil engineer who owns his own firm in Mount Pleasant, Texas.

The Honorable John Engler has served as Governor of the State of Michigan since his election in 1990. He reformed the funding of Michigan schools, cut property taxes, and is one of the most prominent in his involvement in welfare reform over many years.

He's served as head of the National Governors Association. Prior to his service as Governor, he was in the Michigan State House of Representatives from 1970 to 1976, in the Michigan Senate from 1978 until his election as Governor, serving for six of those years as majority leader of the Senate.

Albert Hawkins is director of the Texas Governor's Office of Budget and Planning, which makes him Governor Bush's chief adviser on state fiscal issues. Prior to coming to the Governor's Office, he worked for the Texas Legislature Budget Board for 13 years, rising to the position of Deputy Director in 1994. In 1998, he was named outstanding Texas leader by the John Ben Shepherd Forum, and the administrator of the year by the Texas State Agency Business Administrators’ Association.

We have Steve Wolens, next. The Honorable Steve Wolens represents the 103rd District in the Dallas area, in the Texas House of Representatives, serving, now, in his 10th year, or 10th term, excuse me, in the legislature.

He is chairman of the State Affairs Committee. He was named one of the ten best legislators by Texas Monthly magazine, four times. During high school, just a few years ago, he served as a page in the U.S. Congress, working in the Washington office of Congressman Olin Teague, and he's a partner in Baron & Budd law firm in Dallas.

And Carl Leubsdorf has been Washington Bureau Chief for the Dallas Morning News since 1981. He serves as assistant managing editor of the newspaper. At the Morning News, he's written about the White House and national politics. He's been a correspondent for the Washington Bureau of the Baltimore Sun, and for AP, and also co-hosts a weekly public affairs television program called "Capital Conversation."

Now our moderators. E.J. Dionne, over at the far end, is a columnist for the Washington Post and senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, previously serving as a reporter and editorial writer for the Post. He served before that as a correspondent for the New York Times in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. He is the author of one of the most widely read books on American politics: "Why Americans Hate Politics."

David Brooks is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, a contributing editor at Newsweek, and a commentator on National Public Radio.

David has been with The Standard since it began in 1995, before that working at The Wall Street Journal in a variety of positions, including op-ed page editor and European correspondent.

He is currently writing a book for Simon and Schuster on the manners and morals of upscale America, and he will tell us which parts of Texas that includes. So let me turn this over to the moderators.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you, Norm. Thank you all for being here, and thanks to our CSPAN audience for joining us. I'd also like to thank Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein for putting these together. You should know Norm always wants people to feel welcome. When the Al Gore session was on, he wore earth tones. Today, he is wearing a blue suit. We can ask him if there's a significance here.

[Laughter.]

Thanks also to John Fortier and to Christian Cook for all their extremely hard and thoughtful work and research, and I'm glad Mr. Root worked for the AFP, because he can explain Governor Bush's foreign policy to us.

We know from our experience with front-running campaigns, that it's difficult for anyone speaking on their behalf to do anything but stay on message. In an effort to change that, I do intend to press Governor Engler today, to tell us, in great detail, why he is a much better Governor than George W. Bush is.

[Laughter.]

And we know we'll get an honest answer from him on that subject.

Adlai Stevenson once spoke of the lawyer who said: "These are the conclusions on which I base my facts."

[Laughter.]

We hope today, as at moments in the other sessions, that our panelists will try to pass on some facts, along with their conclusions. If matters do get tense, they can always turn back to the wonderful formulation of President Nixon's press secretary, Ron Zeigler. Ron Zeigler once said: "If my answers sound confusing, I think they are confusing because the questions are confusing, and the situation is confusing, and I'm not in a position to clarify it."

[Laughter.]

If we get to that point in the discussion, David and I will certainly have failed, and you can give us the hook and replace us.

I've said it each time so far, so I'll say it again. We are not trying to set an artificial standard of statesmanship. We're still guided by Thomas Reed's line that a definition of a statesman is a successful politician who is dead.

We are looking for the characteristics that make a politician a successful leader while still alive.

Again, we will turn to the audience for your questions and thoughts. You've been generous and very helpful and thoughtful at the other sessions.

And now I want to turn to my friend, David. We know David is a conservative. We'll learn from his questions today whether he is a compassionate conservative, though, for the sake of prodding, I hope he's not too compassionate. He certainly hasn't been with me.

David.

MR. BROOKS: I've always been a callous conservative.

I'm struck by the fact that we have our largest crowd here today, which is a good sign of buzz factor, and so many policy experts I recognize, and I should mention, we will have a resume drop by the door, and if you'd like to write a 50-word essay, Why I should be undersecretary of Commerce in a Bush administration, Governor Engler will bring them down to Austin. They'll get consideration they deserve.

[Laughter.]

The first question is for Governor Engler and I'd like to ask about what the Bush campaign demonstrates in the way it's been organized, or demonstrated by the Bush administration. The Bush campaign, in some sense, at least for the first year, perhaps the greatest organizational undertaking since D-Day.

They were flying squads of policy advisers down to Austin, the great Club Wonk. You got the impression that they were giving them tickets at the door--You will be served next--and they all came and met the Governor. It was really dazzling--a gathering of many of the top experts in Washington and artfully balancing factions within the Republican Party.

So, for example, in foreign policy, conservatives were happy there were guys like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz. More moderates were happy there was Condoleeza Rice and Bob Zoellick, and there were arcane distinctions in foreign policy that most people don't even, aren't even aware of, between realists and interventionists, neorealists, neointerventionists, quasi-pseudo interventionists. It was all covered, and it was covered in a beautiful manner, so that much of the Washington policy community was just dazzled by what was done, and the same thing was done with funders, and parts of the Republican establishment.

I recall one Iowa state legislator went down to Austin and had lunch with the Governor, and he was asked, "Well, what'd you have for lunch? What was the food?" and he said, "I don't remember the food. I was focused on the man," which was like he had met Elvis.

[Laughter.]

But what it seems to produce--and the Governor can correct me--is almost already, more than any other campaign, a "shadow White House" with routing trees for the different memos and speeches that are to be given, and I was wondering, first of all, does this look as organized, from your vantage point, and, second of all, where does Governor Bush play among this mass of advisers, when he's sitting around, say, about to give a major foreign policy address? How does he deal with the many people he has around the table? How does he intervene? What sort of management structure is it compared to things you've seen in other campaigns?

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Well, I think that's a very good question to start the morning with, and let me just say I'm delighted to be able to participate in this, and to talk about a person that I think will make a superb President, and I think the question maybe highlights some of the great strengths that I think George W. Bush has.

He's a very strong, very confident individual, and I think he's comfortable bringing together people, even with divergent viewpoints, and the subtle shadings and distinctions that you just referred to, that exist within the sort of galaxy of Republican stars. I think the Republican Party has a slight advantage, these days, and I think our bench strength is better and the talent that we have to draw on is deeper, and what has happened, and part of this--I don't want too much of this to seem--it's just in comparison, maybe, to our last two presidential campaigns, which probably weren't the models of organization that some of us might have wished for, so, clearly, in contrast, this is starting very well, and it's started, albeit somewhat late, if you think in terms of the permanent campaigns that we've referred to earlier this morning.

Governor Bush didn't actually make a firm commitment to run until much later than other candidates.

You had others who had been for some time in Iowa and New Hampshire, but what he did is methodically prepare himself, began to consult with a wide range of people, and not on that list would be, I think, any number of people who are community and civic leaders, leaders of faith-based organizations, leaders in business, different sectors of enterprise in America, and all part of a, I think a "getting comfortable" strategy with the range of issues, and challenges that a President, the first President in the 21st Century is going to face.

And so it tells you, I think, about the capacity of Governor George Bush to be President, comfortable with ideas, decisive, willing to engage as he did in these sessions, and he may, in some meetings, sit and let the discussion take place, and go back and forth, and then interject later.

In other cases, he leads it with a provocative question and starts it off, and gets it going.

I think that one of his great strengths and a great advantage, certainly compared to the Republican field, and I believe the Democrat field as well, is his executive experience. When he leaves the Austin house for the White House, which I think he'll do in a few months from now, he'll be in his seventh year, Governor of a state that would be the 11th largest economy in the world, and you don't run these by yourself. You've got to be able to recruit good people. You've got to be able to delegate. You've got to be able to be decisive. You've got to be able to make decisions.

He does that and is very comfortable in making decisions with the widest range of viewpoints put in front of him. That gives me a lot of confidence about the kind of administration he'll build, and I think it is also reflected in the way he's governed in Texas, and that he has shown a willingness--he talks on the campaign trail about being a uniter, not a divider.

What that translates to is that if you'll work with him, he'll work you, and he's willing to listen to people. He's willing to assimilate these different ideas and then, as Ronald Reagan said, the art of the possible--what can he do, what can he get done, and draw upon those different inputs, and I think it's a skill that's very useful. I think it's a skill in this town, frankly, being able to talk to people, even people you disagree with, that maybe has been a bit absent in recent years, and could offer all of America a lot of hope about the direction of policy in Washington, and I'll leave it there, David, for openers.

MR. BROOKS: In some ways, I just want to ask Mr. Wolens, oh, come on, he can't be that good, and in some level I'd like you to address that.

Ann Richards put it much better, but George Bush seems to be the kind of guy who could charm the skin off a snake, or $100,000 in soft money out of every millionaire.

Could you talk about his style with the legislature? How much was it Bush? How much was it his staff? How much was it his command of issues? How much of it, to use a Texas term, was pure schmoozing? Could you describe the process?

REP. WOLENS: No, there's a lot of schmoozing that goes on, but as we know, there are a lot of politicians who are snakes, and it is clear that Bush is a charmer. He has got an awesome social skill, of being able to do a pat on the back, or a squeeze on the arm, or a shake of the hand. It's as Governor Engler said--he does bring people in. I mean, he really does, and I can only speak, not from campaign rhetoric, but just from my experience in dealing with him over six years.

Texas is different than most states. We are generally operated as a bipartisan state. We look at things in terms of not left, right, Republicans or Democrats, but we look at what is going to do well for the state.

And when Bush came in '95, he came where the Democrats controlled the House, the Democrats controlled the Senate, the speaker of the House was a Democrat, and the lieutenant governor, who runs statewide, was a Democrat. Everybody was a Democrat.

He came with a very disciplined message. He had four things. He ran on four issues, and I predict that when we get closer to November, he'll be running on four or five issues again, too.

He has a very disciplined message, and in '95 it was tort reform, education, juvenile justice, and welfare reform. That was it. Those were the four issues, and he came to a legislature that was controlled by Democrats, and it is seen as his most successful session in the legislature, albeit he was very disciplined in the message.

It was different in '97, where he was a little bit more expansive in the message, and he was a little bit more risk-taking in his message in '97. But going back to what you just said, it is not uncommon for Bush to bring people, of the other side, and say, "What do you think about it?" 'cause that's just what he does.

And it is--Governor Engler said something, I mean, I've got experience--when he wants to make a decision, he'll bring people of opposite sides in to argue the dickens out of an issue. He'll do it just before he vetoes a bill, or if he's going to veto a bill.

He'll bring three or four or five aides in there, and they argue with each other. Bush sits back and he listens, and then he starts picking a little bit, and he will be sometimes a buzzard about chewing at an issue and making somebody go back and get some information, and he will ultimately make up his mind. I mean, that is what he does. He ultimately figures it out himself, and sometime sit is not necessarily popular with the far right, and sometimes it's not going to be popular with Democrats, but, eventually, he will get to a spot that he feels very comfortable with.

It was so surprising to us, in Texas, to have a Republican running for Governor in 1995, to go out and talk about educating immigrants. I mean, it's just not what Republicans do, to go off, especially when Pete Wilson of California was in there on totally the opposite side, and the Republican Party was pretty much embracing what Pete Wilson's message was. Bush wasn't singing that song in Texas, and it is true, he does come and looks for bipartisan support. He doesn't look for blame but he looks to bringing people together.

Now, the interesting thing is if he gets elected, what does that mean, like dealing with Congress? And I think it's curious, whether or not he can bring a bipartisan approach to governing from Austin and bring it to D.C.

It is not what we see people in Washington being, bipartisan. It's not what they do. So if you have, I think, Speaker, the current Speaker there, you're going to see a Speaker trying to diffuse partisanship by the Republicans. If he's dealing with Speaker Gephardt, and if we have that flip, which we haven't seen since, I think 1848, it's curious whether Gephardt is going to be partisan, and I don't think that he will be.

I think he will be less predictably partisan because he's not going to want to oversee a do-nothing Congress.

MR. DIONNE: Could I ask you a quick follow-up?

REP WOLENS: Sure.

MR. DIONNE: You said in Texas legislature, it's not left and right. That's in part because there isn't much of a left in the Texas state legislature, except for a handful of brave souls.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: And I guess my question is, is this--and there are an awful lot of conservative Democrats whose views on issues really aren't, fundamentally, all that different from George Bush's, and so we're going to try to get to this later, but I'd like to ask you: Is this situation just so utterly different from the situation in Congress, that maybe the lessons learned in Texas are either not applicable or actually may be misleading, when you come to Washington?

REP. WOLENS: No. There will be beliefs on the left and beliefs on the right, but they are not defined by partisanship. They are not defined by D's and R's. They are defined by general beliefs about how government should be structured. Texas is generally a conservative state but in moving in that direction it has done with both parties, and not with one party, and it's not with one party blaming the other party for errors, mistakes, et cetera.

MR. DIONNE: David.

MR. BROOKS: Albert Hawkins, I recently did some research into how Governor Bush operated when he was the owner of the Texas Rangers, and how he managed that team, which some would say is trivial, but no story that allows me to interview Mets manager Bobby Valentine is totally trivial, I would say. But it did reveal a particular management style, because he really was the managing partner of that team, and it was a style that was heavy on delegation.

He had a team president named Tom Schieffer who's the brother of Bob Schieffer, the Face The Nation host, and he delegated the "nuts and bolts," as he freely admitted. Tom Schieffer said in the press: Bush wasn't that much interested in the day to day. He was broad vision. He provided sort of the mood, a lot of climate control, making everybody feel good about the team, but not running things in a Jimmy Carter "nuts and bolts" manner.

And my lesson from that was that the chief of staff in a Bush White House would be the most powerful chief of staff, maybe in American history.

And I asked Governor Bush about that, and he disagreed, saying, "As Governor, I've got a much flatter organizational chart. I have direct access from more than one person."

And that quotation reminded me, first of all, that if Bush were elected, he'd be our first President with an MBA, which I'm not sure the country's ready for.

[Laughter.]

But I was wondering if you could describe his delegation style as you worked with him. Was it a heavy--did he just set broad policy and allow people who worked under him to sort of "run with the ball" or was there something else going on?

MR. HAWKINS: Well, I think the style you described, that he used as managing general partner of the Texas Rangers, is similar to how he's approached his responsibilities in state government.

As Governor Engler was saying with respect to the campaign, organization and discipline, he's approached his job as Governor of Texas the same way.

He has a clear focus on the agenda that he's established and wants to pursue as Governor of Texas. He looks for people who are capable, agree with his philosophies, understand his policies and are able to carry them out.

He really works from a Big Picture angle. One of the great pleasures of working with Governor Bush is that we get to understand very, very well what it is he's seeking. He sets a goal. We know what that goal is. We know that there are certain methods that would be compatible with achieving that goal and we move forward that way.

The Governor's not totally hands off, though, and he does delegate and rely on the staff, and others who are involved in operating Texas state government, but he checks back in. I mean, there's an expectation that significant decisions are brought back, he makes those decisions, he stays engaged but not at the detail level, and I think that's important for his leadership style.

He does not enmesh himself in needless details, particularly, you know, the kinds of things that I, as budget director, have to deal with, and I wouldn't expect him to spend his time on those kinds of matters. But he's very involved and very knowledgeable of the overall budget outlook, the key decisions that need to be made. He provides the direction to us.

As Governor of Texas, he has used a fairly flat organization. There is a structure that allows senior staff direct access to the Governor on a regular basis, any time we want or need it, or any time he wants or needs us. So, you know, there's not just this single focal point where everything goes through.

He values a lot getting the views and opinions of the people around him, and he factors that into his decisions.

MR. BROOKS: If I could just ask a quick follow-up about the campaign. It's often been said of the campaign that he does have a focal point in this campaign, which is three people, the troika--Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, and I was wondering if that's different from his governing style, what you see in the campaign structure?

MR. HAWKINS: Well, I think there's going to be some consistency between people who are involved in a broad range of issues, but I think if you looked at the campaign--and I don't work directly with it--there are a lot of other key people who are involved in the policy matters, and they are the ones that visit with him directly, and at length on various subjects, and everything does not just funnel through one, two, or three people.

MR. DIONNE: Senator Ratliff, we're going to get into more detail later on the education reform and the tax fight over that, but could you talk--this is more on the question of governing style.

If Bush is so charming, why did so many Republicans abandon his original tax plan?

And related to that, Texas has a weak governorship. How much did, in fact, George Bush run that government? How much was he deferring to his lieutenant governor, the late Bob Bullock, who, under Texas law has, in some ways, more power than the Governor? Could you talk about both, you know, his relations with his own party, especially in that difficult period, and then the question of how he exercised what power he had?

SENATOR RATLIFF: Well, to understand the first part of the question, that is, the perception that the Republicans abandoned his tax plan, which I think is a misperception, actually. Governor Bush came out with a tax restructuring plan prior to the session. Many--in fact I would say most of the members of the Texas Senate--and I was one of those--could have supported that plan as it was presented.

In Texas, tax plans have to come out of the House. They have to originate in the House. It went to the House to a special committee and it grew to a much larger and much more grandiose, I would have to call it, tax plan than the one that the Governor submitted.

When it came to the Senate, the Senate simply wasn't prepared to do all the things that that special House committee had embroidered around this basic plan, and so rejected it. It finally went to a conference committee, and when it finally got down to the end, the Governor simply took the position, "I want that tax cut that was the foundation of the original plan in order to come out of here with something."

And so he got the basic plan that he asked for, but without all the restructuring. The misperception is that the Republicans deserted the Governor's plan. The Republicans deserted the plan that came out of the House.

MR. DIONNE: Which he had endorsed.

SENATOR RATLIFF: Well, he had to get something out of the House in order for the Senate to even have a chance to do something. As I recall, his statement at the time was: It has a lot of good things in it, let's get it out of here so that we can get a bill to conference committee or move the process.

My perception at the time was not that he was endorsing that whole package; not at all, as a matter of fact.

MR. DIONNE: We'll get back to that. Could you talk about his relationship with Bullock and the strange nature of the Texas governorship, in part, just to enlighten people about what a peculiar institution that is.

SENATOR RATLIFF: Well--

MR.DIONNE: It's a bad phrase, given history. I will say a peculiar executive institution.

SENATOR RATLIFF: The Texas governorship is seen as a weak governorship, constitutionally, because constitutionally it has the powers of veto, the powers of appointment, which in Texas is significant because we have so many boards and commissions, something like 2,700 appointments.

And the power of the bully pulpit. Governors--we have had strong Governors and we've had weak Governors. It depends on the person and how much strength they can bring to the office. I would say that George Bush, in my political lifetime, or in my lifetime, is the strongest if--I compare him with John Connolly so far as his ability to make the system work, to bring the legislature to his agenda, and I would say from that standpoint as a guide, he is either the strongest, or equal to John Connolly so far as making it a strong office.

But it has to do with the personality and the leadership. I think it's a great indication of his leadership skills, that he can take a constitutionally weak office and do as much with it as he has done.

MR. BROOKS: Jay Root, I was wondering if you could sort of respond to a number of the issues that we've already heard, in particular three, one, this question of the weak governorship, how do you think it would translate if he came here to Washington with at least a traditionally stronger presidency?

Second, the question of the Texas Democrats versus the Washington Democrats. How does he do with Molly Ivins and the people who are of her mind in Washington?

And finally, the question of delegating power. The national press, in regard to Governor Bush, has developed this "gotcha" mentality. Who's the finance minister of Fredonia?, sort of thing.

And I was wondering if, when you go to a press conference with him in Texas, and you ask him about a relatively arcane matter, can you be assured that he can reel off the answer, that he does have the mastery of the detail that you need just for, you know, a chaotic press conference?

MR. ROOT: Well, let me take your last question first. I think he is a delegator, and I think that does show in his answers to questions that reporters ask. If it's on the area that he's really excited about, like education or tax cuts, he's very fluent in those issues. I think you sense a real excitement when he talks about education and I think that he, from the perspective of a Governor, I think that he's pretty good on that. I think he can answer pretty well.

When you get off of that, when you get off of the, say, the, for example, the 1995 tenure, or during the session, he did, had these four issues, and was seen as very successful, and sort of this jingoistic adherence to these four categories was sort of credited as what kind of made it all work.

When you get off a those areas, I think not only reporters but legislators say he doesn't always anticipate what's coming.

Let me give you an example. In hate crimes, for example, in the last session, was something that just really wasn't on the radar screen when the session started, so much, and it became a huge political issue.

I mean, I can remember going to a, out to the Bergstrom Airport, out in Austin. President Clinton came out there and challenged Governor Bush to take a stand on the hate crime issue, and I just don't think they saw that coming.

That's certainly what people say, that I've talked to, some of the legislators that were involved in that issue, that he did not see that coming, and that, again, it was not really a part of his main agenda.

On the weak governorship, I think that's an idea, really, that's kind of overrated. For one thing, the veto is a very important power in Texas. It's virtually unchallenged. The last time there was a veto override was 1979. The time before that, it was like in the '40s or '30s.

So when the Governor said--he has the power to say no. "Everything you just did, you just gave to me, sent to my desk--no." So I think that because of the veto power that's unchecked, virtually, that's one thing, in a way, that leads me to say that the idea of a really weak governorship is overrated.

Also, I think that Bush has been so popular in Texas, that people are really kind of afraid of him. I remember that during a hearing, a legislative hearing, Dick Levine, who's sort of an advocate for liberal causes, got up, and it was Education Committee, and told the chairman, Paul Sadler, "What you really ought to do is just take all this money and instead of spend it on tax cuts, why don't we just put more money into education and all that?" And Sadler said, "Well, you know, I don't think any of us up here really disagree with that, but we didn't get 69 percent of the vote, statewide, in the last election."

I think there was a real recognition that if the Governor stood up and said, "By golly, we want property tax cuts," you're not going to have a lot of people stand up and say that's a bad idea.

So you do have some, and which I guess is the last issue, which is about the Democrats versus--you know, the Democrats in Texas versus the Democrats in Washington.

I think there's really only about 40 Democrats in the Texas legislature, that people in Washington would really recognize as Democrats.

[Laughter.]

I'm not sure where Steve--I think Steve Wolens sort of defies, probably, definition, but I think that, you know, a lot of people accused us--I remember when they were talking about the presidential campaign, and, "Oh, those reporters in Texas are just really coddling Bush, and they're so favorable to him." And I remember thinking, it's almost impossible to write, I mean, a neg--even if I--you know, we don't go out wanting to write negative stories, but I mean, even when you're looking for balance, we always found ourselves going back to, you know, one or two people, like Kevin Bailey from Houston, who's considered probably the most liberal member in the House, who also happens to be a member of the NRA, just to give you an example of what it means to be a Democrat in Texas.

[Laughter.]

But anyway--

MR. ROOT: Right. So I don't know if that answers--

MR. DIONNE: Maybe we know where General Pinochet is going to end up in all of this.

[Laughter.]

MR DIONNE: Could I just follow--I want to go to Carl Leubsdorf, but I'd like to follow on that because you raised an interesting point.

You know, the idea of Governor Bush as a snake charmer who really has a sting. You've seen in a lot of the journalism that the Governor and his operation can bear grudges, can be very tough on people who decide to take issue with them. Organized labor is one example, but there are a lot of other people you could talk to.

Could you talk about that a little bit--the notion. Is this in fact someone who is very tough on enemies, does bear grudges, that sort of thing?

MR. ROOT: I think that there is a sense that with all politicians, you're either with us, or you're not with us, and if you're not with us you're not our friends.

But I have gotten the sense in talking to people, that when Bush came into office in '95, an aide to former Lt. Governor Bob Bullock said--called him "a breath of fresh air," because Ann Richards was seen as more of an ideologue, and I think it's true, what other folks said earlier, that he is seen as somebody who could compromise, and I'm not sure I really agree with that.

I know that definitely, there are some people who, you know, probably wake up every morning thinking, you know, how can I get him? or--and maybe vice-versa. But I know, for example, that, you know, people who really don't have any--who almost disagree with him on every issue, just almost--they just say, "I can't help but like the guy."

I mean, it's kind a like what Newt Gingrich said about Clinton. I mean, I just, I get in there, I feel like I've just been intoxicated with it. I think you see that a lot. He does have a lot of charm and people that really disagree with him don't personally hate him.

I haven't seen a whole lot of that, the whole retribution game.

MR. DIONNE: Carl Leubsdorf, a couple of questions. One is something you raised when we came in. You had written a series--or you had written a long story, back in 1980, on Ronald Reagan's governing style in Sacramento, and how that turned out to be quite predictive of how he governed in Washington, and you were suggesting that the Austin situation is so different from the Washington situation, that you might not be able to write a similar story in this campaign.

If you could talk about that a little bit.

The other question is, could you introduce the character of Karl Rove, the Governor's alter ego, and I guess the simple way to ask that question is, Where does Rove stop and Bush start?

Carl?

MR. LEUBSDORF: I think I can probably do a little better on the former than on the latter, but I might say something, just what Steve Wolens said about some politicians are snakes and he's a charmer. I think we've learned in Washington, the last few years, what happens when you have a President who is both snake and charmer.

[Laughter.]

MR. LEUBSDORF: And I think that one of the problems, frankly, that President Clinton has had is that while he is definitely a charmer, and anyone who's been with him knows that, his political opponents think him such a snake, that they refuse to do business with him. So it can be a problem.

The Reagan example is interesting because I was thinking back, that if Governor Bush is elected, he'll be the fourth Governor who will have been elected over about a 25-year period. Two of them, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, came here from essentially one-party states where they hadn't had to deal much with Republicans, and they had a lot of trouble dealing with Republicans. Jimmy Carter had a lot of trouble dealing with Democrats, too, but that's another story.

[Laughter.]

MR. LEUBSDORF: Ronald Reagan came out of a bipartisan state, or a partisan state, I should say, a state where there was strong partisan activity between the Republicans and the Democrats, and I think that was one reason, perhaps, why his style didn't change much and was able to be effective.

Now, it obviously helped him that he had won a big electoral victory, and that the Democrats were really back on their heels in 1981. But the fact is that over this period, the one President who has been successful in dealing with Congress, in getting his way, really was Ronald Reagan, and he was used to dealing with Democrats as the enemy and finding Democrats who would support him, and he was able to form bipartisan coalitions basically about his ideas.

So we come to Governor Bush who has been basically, as Steve Wolens said, operating in a bipartisan state, without a lot of this partisanship, and I think we just don't know.

It's interesting. I asked Governor Bush this very question last winter at a session he had with Texas reporters. Could he--I said the last two Presidents have come to Washington and have said in their inaugural speeches, "One of my goals is to de-emphasize partisanship here and have more bipartisanship. George Bush said that. Bill Clinton said that. Could you do that, given the fact that you've had to deal, you know, not with the kinds of Democrats they have up here?"

And he said, "Well, if I didn't feel that way, I wouldn't be running." Whether this tells you more about his level of confidence, which is very high, or is a real predictor, is something we really won't know.

And as for Karl Rove, Karl Rove has been around, actually, a long time. As many people know, his history dates back to the 1972 Nixon campaign, something he doesn't like to talk about much, and I first met him when he was the executive assistant to a chairman of the Republican National Committee named George Herbert Walker Bush.

He's really, you know, I think regards himself, and maybe should be regarded as the Lee Atwater of this Bush campaign. The difference is that President Bush, while he was interested in politics, I think was really interested in policy, and, as we know, he was especially interested in foreign policy.

Governor Bush got his start, certainly, as a political tactician, and it's sort of interesting, when you talk to people who've dealt with him over the years, they basically say that it's only in more recent years, really, since he's become Governor, that he has become involved and interested in policy.

When you talk to people about his role in his father's administration, it is almost always as a political tactician and as a political instrument of his father. Now part of that was because the Bush family I think felt that they shouldn't get too involved in the governing of the Bush administration, but I think it was also because that was what his interests are. In that, he's somewhat like, at least part of Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton has always been the number one political tactician in the Clinton operation. People tell stories about how, in the final days of the 1992 campaign, when the Clinton campaign was deciding its schedule day to day, and deciding where to go, the person on the plane who knew how many media markets a different town--how many states that it would serve, how many people it would serve, what the political makeup of the different towns were, was not the political adviser, it was Bill Clinton, and I think in that way, I suspect Governor Bush is very much the same.

But he has not shown, except in the areas that he's had to deal with, and has not shown, nationally, although it may be there, is a similar interest in the substance of issues. That's one of the things that, from what Mr. Hawkins said, and what Governor Engler said, that sounds a little bit like when he gets very interested, he gets into the substance, but, mostly, he delegates.

And one of the things that you find in Washington, I think, when you get here, is that A, it's very hard to keep the agenda to four issues because things coming over the radar screen that you have never seen, and never expected, and the perspective gets very different, and also a lot of these issues look a lot different from Washington than they do from Austin, especially tax and budget issues.

So I think that the book is clearly out on how he would perform. I think that Karl Rove will continue to be an adviser. I can't imagine that he would be the chief of staff in the Bush White House, but I don't know who's be the chief of staff in the Bush White House.

MR. BROOKS: Quickly. A lot of the things we've been hearing for the past few minutes, on the charm, on the interest in political tactics, and late coming to policy, get to an issue which is very hard to frame but is at the heart of many people's doubts about Governor Bush, and that's the gravitas issue, the heft issue.

Steve Wolens told me a Yiddish term for this.

REP. WOLENS: Sekel [ph].

MR. DIONNE: Sekel. It's a reflection on my Hebrew teacher that Steve Wolens is telling me Yiddish terms but--

REP. WOLENS: It's either Yiddish or it's East Texas.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: It's Hebrew. That's even a worse reflection on me.

But I was wondering if--

MR. WOLENS: It's not East Texas. I'm from East Texas.

MR. DIONNE: --anybody on the panel, who's worked for Governor Bush more closely than some of us who have only seen him from afar, could give us an anecdote where Bush showed that level of gravitas, that would reassure you, that in a moment of crisis in the White House, he really does have the depth of character to allow him to respond.

Is there any moment that sticks out in anybody's mind?

REP. WOLENS: Just let me mention, there was a--it goes back to that immigrant example that I mentioned to you, when he was running in '95. My experience with the man, is that he is very decent and very sincere, and when he was running in '95 against a very, very good Governor, someone who was very popular--Ann Richards would walk on the street and people would hand her dollar bills for her to sign. She used to be our state treasurer.

MR. BROOKS: That happens on K Street here to Senators.

[Laughter.]

[Simultaneous conversation.]

REP. WOLENS: But, no, I was going to say: She gave the dollar back.

[Laughter.]

REP. WOLENS: That's the difference!

The reporters were going after him. They were just chewing him up. They were looking for something. Heck, here's a Republican coming, let's go get him on the immigrant issue, and he wouldn't take the bait. And they went after him, and some smart reporter thought they had the angle, and so they said, "Would you hire a gay person to work on your staff?" Well, the answer was predictable to me. He's a Republican. In Texas. And he said the most counterintuitive thing for me. He said, "I'm looking for qualified people." Holy smokes, a guy in Texas saying something like that, and he almost reiterated it the other night with McCain, when he was talking about don't ask, don't tell.

And he talks about human value, he talks about family value, et cetera. Now put that aside for a second.

In November '98, he went to see a facility, a brand new facility of the Texas Work Force Commission in El Paso, not a Republican hotbed by any measure, and there were demonstrators at the Texas Work Force Commission in El Paso. There were people who had lost their jobs because of NAFTA, and they were picketing, and they were complaining about Bush, and they were complaining about Republicans. It was a Republican, Governor Clements, who had really helped to emphasize NAFTA, and especially putting these maquiladoras plants, in Mexico.

There is a liberal Democratic state representative named Norma Chavez, who went to the meeting and begged Bush's staff to please let Bush come out and talk to the picketers, to the demonstrators.

They uniformly said, "No; he ain't going." She went back and said please let him go, these are my constituents, would you please ask him to step outside and talk to these protesters, and he was told by Bush's staff, "No; he's not going."

She went to talk to Bush while he was making the tour, and she begged him to come outside. His staff said, "Don't go," and Bush said, "I'm going." So Bush went out to the front, and not only did he talk, but he did, you know, what they sometimes call in Texas, "the Bush glow." He goes out, he talks, he kibitzes, he visits, he does what he did with the backfielders on the football team who were Hispanic. He goes out and talks Spanish with them.

And this was--you know, this is the decency of the guy, who didn't listen to what his flat staff told him to go do, and he didn't play it the safe way. He went out to talk to the folks. And this is sort of vintage George Bush.

MR. DIONNE: I'd like to follow that up and ask Jay, on the seriousness question, I mean, this is someone who's been Governor, who was elected in '94, he was out of politics before that, he ran a baseball team, and after five years in public life, he asks the American people to make him President.

Do you have qualms on the question David asked? Can you talk either--on both sides. I mean, we've got a story about a skilled politician with some principle from Mr. Wolens. Do you have qualms on this question of seriousness?

MR. ROOT: Not really. I wouldn't say qualms. I think that, you know, he jokes a lot, and I think there is some question about how well he was versed on issues when he kicked off the presidential campaign. Those questions were raised, and I think that he did have a learning curve, and he said that himself.

In terms of the seriousness does he take it seriously?, I can't get inside his head, but I don't have any reason to doubt that he does.

There was, for example, on the Karla Fay Tucker question, there was a question about--and there was this talk-interview piece, and did he mock Karla Fay Tucker. Maybe he did, I don't know, but I remember there--I was there. I covered the press conference, when he came out, and I know that, definitely, he took that pretty hard. I mean, I saw that. I could tell, having covered him, that that was something he took very, very seriously.

So there's some seriousness. I think that's, again, a little overblown, too, frankly.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: I want to get into this a little bit, because I just think this is part of the--what a permanent campaign environment breeds is this kind of, sort of Washington question about gravitas. If you're not from Washington, I suppose you don't have, maybe gravitas. Reagan went through this, as we recall.

MR. DIONNE: I would say you needed to be a legislative leader for many years, to be Governor for a long period of time, say, a certain biography that you were very familiar with.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Well, it's tough to overcome the handicap of being a professional politician, you know, but I would suggest that when you take--and I was going to use the Tucker example as well. That was one. I can cite one in '95, after the '94 elections, which--and everybody in America thought it was would be Governor Jeb Bush in Florida and George Bush back in the private sector, and it turned out the opposite way, and discipline has been mentioned, and it was an extraordinarily disciplined campaign, and with a lot of focus from the beginning, knowing these are the things that we're going to do in this campaign.

And I would say that one part of mental toughness and rigor on the candidate's part, was in '94, to say these are the issues we're going to run for the governorship of Texas on, and they aren't going to change, I'm going to stay with them, and we'll win or lose on these issues, and he did that from the get-go, and I think there's a good deal of that in the presidential pursuit.

He will--I made this point--, he will be just entering his seven year as Governor of Texas, when he would move to the White House, so the size of Texas--Arkansas is smaller than Wayne County, Michigan. So a dozen years there versus seven years in Texas, I'm not sure that there's a big difference there. But--

MR. DIONNE: So that means you're endorsing the job President Clinton has done.

[Laughter.]

GOVERNOR ENGLER: No; no. But I'm suggesting that Clinton, being viewed--the years get mentioned, and I don't think they're very relevant. I think he's had a lot of experience being Governor in Texas, and I'm not worried that, somehow, he's not prepared. But to the gravitas itself, during the welfare reform debate, to make that point, in '95 and '96. A few of us were down here, it seemed like weekly, and in that debate, Governor Bush was very important. He was a new Governor. He had a lot of things going on in Texas and he wasn't physically able to be here on very many occasions during that time, not like those of us who were sort of tasked to do that through the Republican Governors Association.

But he was vitally important because of the prominence that we had with Congressman Archer chairing the Ways and Means Committee, with Phil Gramm and with Kay Bailey. The Texas delegation was very, very significant in that debate, and he was an absolute oak in terms of his leadership, and he was new to the job at that time. He was still making appointments back in Texas and the organization of his administration was underway.

He was trying to, in the first few months, that legislative session was underway that's been talked about as well, where he went in with those four ideas. And so he was busy. But he took time to weigh in on that welfare debate and be strongly for the proposition of devolution, and I think he's shown himself, throughout his tenure, as somebody who does favor the proposition of moving power and authority out of Washington back to states and local communities, and I do think that's one of the central governing questions of the early 21st Century here, as to how much power and authority come out of Washington back to the states.

The welfare reform example can be replicated but it can't be done without somebody in the White House who's willing to be the leader, who's willing to build the partnerships, who's willing to bring people together around this proposition, and I do think that the size and the unwieldy nature, the slow pace, the one-size-fits-all sort of mentality in this town doesn't work for the nimble information technology society that we have, and so we've got to move this out, and I think Bush is very, very well-suited to do that.

I just think you wouldn't even ask this question about the gravitas to be President. Frankly, I think that when you look at the people who've held this office, and some of the people who've run for this office in the past, George Bush compares very favorably on any measurement that one would wish to use, including the observation, maybe he'll be the first MBA President. I don't know what that significance is.

MR. BROOKS: As opposed to NBA, which is Bill Bradley.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: Why don't we go for a quick anecdote to Carl, and then quickly get on to the tax issue.

MR. LEUBSDORF: I was going to say, first, that Governor Bush has obviously learned one rule of politics, which is that you get in a lot less trouble for what you don't say than for what you do say. Let me tell an anecdote, and it may or may not be significant, but I think it's the kind of thing that has created perceptions, that have created problems for him in how he is seen, and I'll say, first of all, that I think also that anyone who has graduated from Yale and has an MBA from Harvard, you have to assume that he's, you know, pretty bright to have done that. So intelligence is clearly not the issue.

We had a press conference--it was either last year, or maybe it was the year before--during the Governors Conference. The Governor was here, and he had a press conference with Texas reporters, of the kind that you would have with the Michigan reporters, and it was at a time when the federal Highway Bill was about to expire, and all the Governors were very concerned because on May 1st, they were going to stop getting federal highway funds, and that's obviously a big issue in every state.

And someone asked Governor Bush, what's Texas going to do on May 1st if the highway bill isn't extended? and his answer was basically that--"Well," he said, "you know, I think if you call my office, there's someone there who can tell you something about that."

And reporters sort of looked at each other and said this is not a fringe issue, exactly, and I came back to the office and told the story, and someone in the office said I was down there last June and I went into the Governor's--to a press conference, a session he was having, he was announcing some education program, and he gave a somewhat similar answer: "If you want details, talk to my staff."

Now, does this mean he doesn't know anything? Does this mean he's a very good delegator? I'm not prepared to say. But I think it does create the perceptions of someone who may not always be on top of the substance of what he, as Governor, was dealing with, and could be a problem when he got to Washington.

MR. BROOKS: Why don't we go to the tax issue. We've sort of gone up and down the line maybe a little more than once, so we'd encourage people to interrupt each other more, and be a little more free-flowing, and, also, if I could ask for a few briefer answers. I know E.J. has 47 questions on compassionate conservatism which we won't get to, if we dwell overlong, and especially on this next topic, which is a complicated one, which is taxes, and we'd like to talk, first, about the controversial tax plan that Bush proposed in Texas, and what happened to it, and then about the tax plan that he has now before the country.

There are many people who are intimately involved in that package, and I thought we might start with Steve Wolens, just to give us, in Washington, a brief background of the property tax dispute, what happened, and the property sales tax dispute. Just so we're all up to speed on what that episode was all about, and then maybe we'll go some of the founders of it.

REP. WOLENS: The '97 session was a different Bush than the '95 session. The '95 was the safe, more scripted George Bush, with his four plans, and this was it, and I'm not going anywhere else, and this is where I'm going. And successful. But in '97, he went out on a limb, and it's a limb that people told him not to go out on. Lt. Governor Bullock said don't go there. There are a lot of Republicans that said don't go there. There are a lot of Democrats that said don't go there.

In late 1980, Ann Richards, Governor, asked former Governor John Connolly to run around the state and ask, What should we do to fix our tax structure? Not the taxes but the whole structure. Remember, we don't have a personal income tax in Texas. We don't have much of a corporate income tax in Texas. We really, literally, don't have a corporate income tax, although we have a fairly progressive corporate franchise tax that some people think is an income tax, but it's not a full one.

We really look for our taxes from the sales tax, and it used to be from oil and gas, although as you may have heard, a gallon of Perrier costs more than the gallon of gas for the last period of time.

But in any event, Bush was risky in '97, and he went out on a limb that he didn't have to go on, 'cause it never was promised in the election and no one expected him to go there, and everybody was advising him, "Don't go there."

He was looking to restructure our tax system when we did not have a crisis on hand. So he made a proposal that Bill Ratliff discussed with us. Tax bills have to originate in the House, and the bill got to be a bigger bill than it started off with, because there was a huge concern about education. Where is the money going to come from for education?

I forgot to mention that we also look for property taxes as the basis for funding education in the State of Texas.

A huge amount of property tax. Bush's thought was you cannot keep relying on property taxes because people are not going to be able to afford their own homes. So Bush wanted to bring down, as a matter of policy, bring down the burden that a home owner has to pay on his property tax to support schools, and shift the burden more to the state because it is the state's obligation to provide public education in Texas.

And so when it got to the House, and when it was created in the House, we looked at more and more and more and more things. We have got more tax exemptions on the sale tax than I think any other state in the country. How many are there? because you used to do this stuff.

MR. HAWKINS: I don't remember the number, but it is tremendous.

REP. WOLENS: A thousand; eight hundred; nine hundred. Twelve hundred.

I mean, everybody has got a sales tax exemption from, from Mellon in the legislature. So one way of looking at it was to eliminate some of these sales tax exemptions.

Bush's general proposal was to take it off capital-intensive industry, which generally is the oil and gas industry, and place more of it on where the new economy is going, which is services, professional services. That is where our government is going. That is where our economy is going. The Internet, for example, although that's not exactly right, an Internet tax--but services.

So he proposed taking it off capital-intensive and placing it on professional services, and a war broke out. I mean, every professional service person down there hired a well-heeled lobbyist with a $2,000 suit and tasseled loafer shoes to come down and beat the proposal. And that is what the debacle was all about.

So by the time it got through the House, it had all of the sales tax exemptions removed and we were going to lower the sales tax--the tax on the capital-intensive industries. That's when it came over to the Senate, and Bill can explain what happened there.

But Bush said something, and I think this is going to follow him for a long time, but for the better. He said, "I had a great '95 session. Now it's time to go expend my political capital."

And it seems like I read in some of ya all's stuff out there, whether or not after the Persian Gulf War, whether or not President Bush missed an opportunity to expend his political capital by investing it in domestic policy, and I think George, the younger, learned the lesson, that you've got to come off when you're doing really, really well, and go expend it on something that you think is important, that's going to have a lasting effect.

And for Bush, the Governor, it was to redo the tax structure.

MR. DIONNE: Mr. Hawkins, could you follow on that. I mean, what was striking, Governor Bush got a lot of very good publicity, analysis in the newspapers, because he was willing, at that moment, to work with Democrats and support a set of positions on this tax bill that an awful lot of Republicans opposed.

Americans For Tax Reform, who are now attacking Senator McCain, attacked Governor Bush for his willingness to endorse some of these tax shifts that Mr. Wolens talked about, and, in the end, for the purposes of this campaign, the fact that the Republicans killed all of those tax proposals, now he can say, well, they weren't mine.

So you had Bush getting credit back then for doing one thing and now he is kind of happy in the campaign because the bill worked out the way it did after all.

Could you describe how he got from one place to another? In particular, how he came to decide to deal with Democrats in the House the way he did on this bill, and how he got to the conclusion he did.

MR. HAWKINS: Well, I think Mr. Wolens has provided some excellent background on the whole issue, but one thing that people, I guess fail to remember, is that this was not a new issue for Governor Bush in 1997. As a matter of fact, during his campaign for election as Governor in 1994, public education was one of his central issues. He felt at that time, and still does, that the state had a primary responsibility for funding our public school system. At that time about 40 to 45 percent of the funding came from the state with the balance being made up from local school property taxes.

During about a 10-year period, property tax rates, school property tax rates in the state had increased about 140 percent.

What he was really addressing was the need to set in place a more fair and stable system for funding our public schools. Like many other states, our state has gone through legal challenges to the reliance on school property taxes, equity issues. We did get in place a constitutional system but it's not a system that will probably hold for the long-term, and the Governor recognized that back in 1994 and said, we need to address this and we need to do it in an environment that is crisis free. We need to be able to look at this issue without the intensity that's established when a system has been ruled unconstitutional and you're grabbing at ways just to satisfy a court requirement rather than to put in place a system that responds to your goals and your priorities.

And that's the idea he had about this whole deal starting from 1994. It was not addressed in 1995, because he did want to focus on those other issues, public education being one of them, and in 1995 there was a lot of focus on rewriting the policy aspects of public education. The Education Code, as a matter of fact, was totally rewritten in 1995 by Senator Ratliff and Representative Paul Sadler.

Shortly after the 1995 session, the Governor turned his attention to this issue of establishing a more fair system of funding our public schools and reducing the reliance on property taxes. Now, it had benefits both for the public school funding side but it also had benefits, obviously, of reducing the tax burden, particularly on single family residences of the property tax.

And, so, we began working on that and there was a lot of effort and input into that process. There was a staff working group that worked out some options. There was a citizen's committee that was appointed, held public hearings across the state and prepared a report to the Governor and the legislature. And then finally the Governor did make a proposal to the legislature to address the issues that had been identified.

Part of the proposal did involve reducing about $3 billion in property taxes on an annual basis. It was a net overall tax reduction of a billion dollars. The legislature, particularly in the House, did not agree with the proposal that the Governor presented to them and started working on their own proposal. Senator Ratliff has said our constitution requires that tax measures originate in the House. We worked very closely with the House Tax Committee, Special Committee on Taxation and Public School Funding.

They did go to an approach that looked at eliminating exemptions in our sales tax. Still it was targeted at reducing property taxes, school property taxes. It did go about twice as far as the proposal that the Governor laid out and that was very appealing in the sense that it would have resulted in a very dramatic decrease in school property taxes.

And the Governor was focused on moving this issue along, did support moving that bill through the committee and through the full House; engaged in discussions with both Democrats and Republicans about the benefits of the bill, recognizing that there were several pieces of it that would need to be refined, worked out during a conference committee. But the whole idea was you never get a chance to improve a product if the product stops dead in the water at that point.

And that was the focus of the Governor, to get something, keep something moving so that we can get to a place where we can work to a solution that was agreeable to both the House and the Senate.

MR. BROOKS: Could I follow Senator Ratliff then? How, very quickly, how did the Governor react when it was getting chewed up in the legislature and was anything characteristic about his reaction?

And secondly, if we could segue to the national campaign where he has emerged paradoxically as a sort of supply sider. I noticed Arthur Laffer and Larry Kudlow and Robert Bartley, the editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal, suddenly on the Bush side against the John McCain, more fiscally conservative side. And that seems to be the strange debate that is evolving now.

So, my question is, first of all, how did he react to the setbacks in that bill? And, secondly, would you have predicted that he would emerge now as sort of a supply side champion against more fiscally conservative Republicans?

MR. HAWKINS: Well, you know, tax legislation in Texas, in any place, I think is always a very complex and sometimes emotional issue for the legislative process to deal with. I've never seen any major proposal go into the Texas Legislature and come back out the same way it went in.

[Laughter.]

MR. HAWKINS: I mean just the nature of the process is that there are going to be changes, sometimes significant ones. There are going to be disagreements and that's the beauty--that's the marvel of the system that we have in place, the political process for resolving conflict.

There were conflicts around the proposal that the Governor laid out as well as the proposal that came out of the House. His reaction was, let's keep focus on the goal, let's keep focus on the need to address this issue. We really need to put in place a stronger system for funding our public schools. We need to reduce the tax burden on single family homes as well as on capital-intensive industries, because we were at a point there of discouraging further capital investment, which gets into your other point.

And I think those principles have been in place through his tenure as Governor as well. He does recognize the economic benefit of reducing taxes, particularly with regard to his efforts to reduce property taxes because that's a direct tax on capital investment.

MR. BROOKS: Let me get Senator Ratliff.

SENATOR RATLIFF: Well, I'm not sure I can speak to his reaction while it was going through the House. I had plenty to do of my own about that time. When it came to the Senate his reaction to us was is there something here we can work with? It was, this is considerably different than what I laid out to start with. Now, can we do something with it?

And the Texas Senate tried very hard to find things in there that they could do something with. What they did finally was to scale it back almost to the original proposal, passed out that bill and sent it to a conference committee to see whether there was any chance of reconciling the two situations.

The Senate, by and large, was not prepared for the kind of tax shifts that the House had finally put together. And rightly or wrongly, the conference committee locked up. Finally the Governor did what I believe is one of his major talents.

You know, I don't know how many of you have ever hunted quail. When a covey rises they teach you don't just shoot up into the covey, you got to pick out a bird and you got to shoot it. And then you pick out a second one, and you shoot it. If you just shoot up into the covey you're not going to get anything.

Governor Bush has that unique ability to focus on his top priority. He went back and he said, okay, guys, if it's going to self-destruct, I want to go back to the original premise: I want to lower property taxes on the single family residences in Texas and I want to use some of this tax reform to do that and how do we do that. And that's finally what came out of all of this. Sure it was not everything that he had asked for in the beginning.

And to the supply side question I think we saw some seeds of that at least, some of his philosophy in that one of the major attempts that he was making was to remove or to reduce the level of the franchise tax on heavy industry so that they can generate more economic activity in Texas. We were discouraging industry from moving to Texas and we were encouraging Texas industry to move out by the level of the corporate franchise tax in Texas.

So, I think we saw in that effort, the effort to spread that load to the non-capital intensive industries and be able to generate more economic engine.

MR. DIONNE: Dan Quayle didn't know what he was up against.

I want to go to Governor Engler. Very quickly, I want to underline what David said. We want to get to the audience. We have a lot of issues we want to cover. If everybody could try to keep their answers as brief as they can.

Governor, this is a version of the question I promised to ask you. This tax reform that Governor Bush suggested was said to be inspired by your education tax reform in Michigan. You pulled it off in Michigan. It failed in Texas. Why did you succeed and Governor Bush in his ambitious plan fail?

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Well, we may have had the right crisis in Michigan. We didn't have any money for schools come the next school year unless we agreed on something. And we ended up not being able to agree on a single plan. So, we punted to the voters and we did the unusual thing of agreeing literally to put one plan into law with a replacement plan then going to the voters and the voters could choose. If they voted in the affirmative on the measure that was on the ballot which actually was a dramatic reduction in personal taxes on their--property taxes, their homestead, their farms. We went from an average of 36 mills for schools down to 6. So, it was very big.

We were--

MR. DIONNE: Replacing it with a sales tax, right?

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Replacing it with an increase in the sales tax which was a 4 percent rate which went up to 6 and it was a significant net tax reduction as well. So, it had a lot of good elements. It also cut the income tax rate down from 4.6 to 4.4 under the plan that we took to the ballot.

The alternative plan--and this was a great challenge in the legislature to get everybody to vote for the other guy's plan, even though they loathed it, and we had Republicans voting for what would be a 6 percent income, over 6 percent income tax rate because the Democratic ideology was that the income taxes were popular. We thought they were wrong. Seventy percent of the voters in Michigan agreed with us, and passed the ballot plan.

This came after two failures, by the way, so, this wasn't so easy to do. And I had a four-year head start on this. We failed with two separate ballot proposals prior to connecting with this proposal, a plan which passed in 1994, and that has dramatically changed the way education is funded.

We moved away from a heavy, heavy reliance on the property tax. We constitutionally guaranteed foundation monies and all of this. So, I don't want to get into all of the proposal because that is too long. But it worked, I suppose, because everybody knew you had to make a choice. You could have spinach or broccoli, but you were going to have a vegetable and you didn't have a choice.

And always in the past these things fail because the better is defeated by the perfect. Of course, nobody's written the perfect plan yet, but I'm going to be against this because I know there's something perfect. What that really meant is that anybody in the status quo felt served by that, simply they were comfortable in saying, no, and the no option was eliminated in Michigan. That is why it worked there.

I would like to say it was strictly because of the brilliant executive leadership but it was really simply I think that people had to choose and I think they opted prudently and wisely for the sales tax being higher and their property taxes being dramatically lower--their income taxes being lower as opposed to high, high income taxes.

MR. LEUBSDORF: I was going to relate this to Washington because I think, you know, we have to see what would happen here. In Texas my understanding is that you were mainly talking about dealing with a surplus because the economy has been so good and, so, it was mainly how to carve up that surplus.

MR. WOLENS: Which is different than what Governor Engler just said because he had to have the money and we had extra money at that point.

MR. LEUBSDORF: Right. But in Washington it's more complicated. And I say that's--it is clear that Governor Bush has made the tax cut a major part of his platform. He is, in fact, advocating a larger tax cut than the one the Republicans proposed in Congress and was vetoed last year by President Clinton.

In Washington, while there is a surplus, there is a lot of question about how big the surplus is. It's probably going to be bigger than the budget people say now. But the balanced budget bill in Washington was predicated on several things, including significant spending cuts over the next few years; plus, there is the added problem of Social Security and Medicare, which as everyone knows is an extremely emotional question: How to ensure that those funds are solvent down the road.

So, I have no doubt that if Governor Bush is elected he will propose a large tax cut. I think that's where we'll start from. And I think Steve is right that basically that he has learned that if he has political capital he should use it. He is more of an activist than his father, who in many ways was a true bottom "c" conservative minimalist when it came to the Federal Government on domestic issues.

But I think there are going to be real problems when it gets to Congress no matter which party has control of the House next year on dealing with the size of what he proposes. Because I think the size is going to be major issue and especially the upper half. A lot of Democrats are going to like his proposals dealing with the working poor. It will be some of the Republicans who think that the earned income tax credit, they are still a little suspicious of it. We'll have problems with that.

But it's a very--it's not, you know, there's going to be a lot of questions about the size of this and I think we have no way of knowing how that will play out.

MR. DIONNE: Before, Mr. Wolens, before you say something, I want to broaden this discussion and move to other issues, and you can get back to this. I want to--it's essentially a question I want to address both to you and to Mr. Root.

George Bush talks a lot about compassionate conservatism. I think it was the sainted Molly Ivins, whom David mentioned earlier, who raised the question that if he is a compassionate conservative why, when the child health care bill came up, did he originally propose to limit it to covering only 150 percent of poverty--meaning limiting the number of people covered by it. You, Democrats, in the legislature pushed him up to 200.

Why did the Democrats have to fight with him to put more into the schools and less into the tax cut this last time around? Paul Sadler, your colleague cast the fight as either tax cut or teacher pay or school equity, something has to give. You had to push him in that direction.

Could you tell us how one side--where he stood on issues such as this relate to his compassionate conservatism and Mr. Root could comment also.

MR. WOLENS: Do you want to start, Jay?

MR. ROOT: Could I say one quick thing about the '97 tax effort. Because I sort of have the feeling that I was in a different place because I didn't recognize totally everything that I heard.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you for coming in.

MR. ROOT: And I don't have the benefit of having been in the cloakrooms with Senator Ratliff. But certainly to a lot of Republicans in the House what Bush initially posed was radioactive. People said this is an income tax. You know, we're raising taxes. You know, what's this?

So, and let me just share one little anecdote. I remember the House Republican sponsor of that bill, when he signed onto it, we couldn't reach him for comment. It was Tom Craddick and we said, what about this? And, you know, oh, he's gone. He's got a toothache. He can't be reached for comment.

Finally his office put out a statement and said, as a courtesy to the Governor we're filing this bill and all other questions need to be directed to the Governor's office. So, I just wanted to point that out.

On the 150 versus the 200 issue, I actually interviewed House Speaker Pete Laney about that two days ago. And what he said was that he never felt like Bush was inflexible on that. And, again, 100, you know, in other words, covering children--

MR. DIONNE: Two or Three Hundred Thousand if I remember right, the number, the difference.

MR. ROOT: Right. There was a fairly significant number that if you covered them, you know, at 150 percent versus 200 percent. What Speaker Laney told me was that he felt like a lot of Bush's staffers were very rigid on that issue. And that they said, you know, all kinds of things. Like, well, if we go to 200 percent that's going to mean that there is going to be lot more kids on Medicaid and that's going to push the rolls up. And, you know, the Democrats, a lot of Democrats said, well, you know, if kids need to be on Medicaid then they need to be on Medicaid; if they are eligible they should be on it.

But there seemed to be a real disconnect from everything I've heard and I've talked to people on both sides, between Bush's staff and the Governor, himself. And that is what emerged to me. And when it finally came down to the end game, and when it was clear that there this real insistence on, we've got to do it at 200 percent, that Bush went along with it.

So, I don't know--

MR. HAWKINS: I can speak to that a little bit.

MR. DIONNE: All right.

MR. HAWKINS: Because I don't really think there was a disconnect between the Governor and his staff, obviously. I mean what--

[Laughter.]

MR. HAWKINS: --what the--there was a lot of disconnect within the Texas Legislature. I mean what we were looking at was some different factions that felt that different levels of income ought to be reflected in the CHIPs program. There were different positions with respect to how it ought to be financed. There were a lot of issues that needed to be resolved during the course of the legislative session.

What the Governor determined to do then was to make an initial proposal. Not at all drawing a line in the sand. I mean I've been amazed by the discussion that's gone on about this issue because the only thing that came out of the Governor's office with respect to that was the cost-out of the item in his proposed budget. And I can guarantee you that that was just done as a place holder for the program.

And we just based the cost estimate on a modest level, recognizing all along that the issue would be worked on and clarified during the course of the legislative session.

The Governor was not drawing a line in the sand at all. He didn't oppose, obviously, going to the 200 percent of poverty. He signed the bill at the end, agreed with the legislative leaders when they came in and told him this is what we would like to do and he said, let's move forward with it.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: I want to rescue us from this issue a little bit in that--and put a little George Bush's philosophy on the table though. Because I do think that this is a great difference probably, certainly most well seen between Bush and the eventual Democratic nominee. The objective here is to have someone have enough income to be able to move out of Medicaid eligibility in the first place or CHIPs program eligibility.

And, so, the tax cut, itself, is designed for economic growth and we're into a Democratic discussion about how do you make the best welfare program in the world. And I think George Bush would agree that the best welfare program in the world is a real poor substitute for having a job and having adequate income to be in charge and independent in your own life.

And, so, often in this town it seems to me that we miss that point and that's what this tax cut, the broader tax cut proposal that Carl spoke about earlier, I think will go to the Congress. I think we will be successful with that. And if I look at these estimates on the budget and they are pretty modest right now, that everybody has based their tax cut proposals on. But even with those modest growth numbers, I mean one way to ensure that we reach the more modest growth levels is not to cut taxes and then we can see an economy which they are reporting this week has now reached the duration in terms of economic performance that is equaling that of the '60s.

And I remember that fourth quarter performance by President George Bush where it was 4.7 growth. Of course, adjusted later on early in the Clinton term to reflect that number. So, I just think that the tax cut at the national level makes a lot of sense.

And the CHIPs program, itself, another problem with it is that Congress in the debate ended up mandating that we would either provide no coverage or a Cadillac program instead of giving the states the flexibility to maybe provide priority health care, well-baby care, well-child care or something and maybe major medical as opposed to a full boatload package that is the equivalent of a, say, a state employee or the Medicaid benefit.

MR. DIONNE: We're going to have a bakeoff between the Gore campaign and the Bush campaign about who is more on message.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: Look. Carl has to run. So, let's get to him and then after Carl gets his final sally why don't we try to reduce our answers even shorter so we can cover a few more topics.

And, Carl, on this question of compassionate conservatism. It seems to me one better phrase for it is governing conservatism. And Governor Bush talks about Governor Engler and Giuliani and Steven Goldsmith, the mayor of Indianapolis, and one of the contrasts that seems to be drawn is between governing conservatism and maybe the opposition mentality conservatism that may have been evinced by Newt Gingrich and some of the Republican revolutionaries. They were much more, let's just get government off our back, whereas Governor Bush has a much more limited but activist role for government, including Federal grants for some poverty programs.

MR. LEUBSDORF: Well, I think that's one of the interesting things is there clearly is, as I said, I think the contrast with his father is very useful there. His father really was a minimalist. I think that one of the reasons he didn't do much after the Gulf War was, frankly, he wasn't sure if government should do a lot of these things. And his rule was that government should only step in if necessary.

And we see from Governor Bush there is a real willingness in education and on other issues and on the working poor for government, even the Federal Government, to play a role. I think education is a very good example because he's talking about using the power of the Federal purse and Federal education funds to punish schools where the students don't meet certain standards and that's a much more activist role.

And there's going to be some conflict between that and the Republicans. I mean the Republicans in the House certainly are divided. About half of them are the Newt Gingrich, tear it all down, get rid of the Federal education department, group. And about the other half are much more amenable, I think, to the approach that Governor Bush had.

He will be able to govern on some of these things, it seems to me with a combination of Republicans and Democrats. That's what he's going to have to do.

And I would suggest just one final thing. A lot of this may depend on the tone of the campaign. And I think that, for example, in 1988, the tone of the Republican campaign and the Democratic reaction to it was one of the factors that made it harder for President Bush to govern when he got in and clearly wanted to have a kinder, gentler approach than President Reagan's approach on a lot of issues. It created a lot of partisan resentment, whether deserved or not.

And I think that the degree to which Governor Bush can get through the campaign and if he's to win, without that happening and without a harsh edge on his campaign, will pay bid dividends if he's elected.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you.

If I could throw the question I asked to Mr. Wolens and Mr. Root just in general about some of these particular issues. I suppose you could say it's political potpourri--child health care; briefly the fight over how much you put in a tax cut versus how much you send to the schools where Bush talked about himself as Education Governor. Also, if somebody could address the controversies over his environmental policies. The Sierra Club is running some ads in New Hampshire about his signing the bill allowing - I want to save us from going in to excruciating detail. But there were voluntary vs. mandatory standards on pollution. If you could address those briefly. And then also if somebody could bring out the mikes, so we can get the audience in. Why don’t you start, Mr. Wolens, you have been patient, then Mr. Root.

MR. WOLENS: Let me tell you about the environmental bill because the mandatory bill was mine and it’s got my name on it. When the bill came over from the Senate, it was good, but we put a lot of garlic in the bill. It came over with gums, and we put a lot of teeth in it. And we put a lot of mandatory requirements for the dirty power plants, what the utility companies called "environmentally challenged" power plants. In any event, we put in a lot of very strong language that was supported by the Sierra Club, and it was going to lose that with the voluntary bill you just mentioned by a switch going on in the Governor’s office. So I called and went over to visit with Bush at his home. And I said, "this is my dilemma. I want to make sure that I am not going to be two-timed by you guys. I don’t want to pass my strong bill, have it become law, let you sign my bill first and the voluntary bill second, thereby wiping out all of mine." He said, "I’m not going to do that." He said "What do the utilities want?" I said, "they don’t want this thing." So I sat down and explained it to him. And he said, "what can I do to help?" And he set about in the House to do what I asked him to do in the House, and he wound up signing my bill in such a manner that the teeth were not going to go out of it by which bill he signed first. And I’m not criticizing that fellow on what he did with the mandatory portions of cleaning up the air in Texas on the electric deregulation bill.

Now it’s true that the other bill was not as strong, and it pertained to other industries. It was better than the status quo. It had more in it than we would have had without the bill. It was a carrot and stick that if you want this then you’ve got to do that. But it clearly was not as strong as some things that he could have done. John Engler over here has got a heck of an environmental record, but Bush did pretty good in ’99 on the mandatory provisions as it applied to the electric companies.

MR. ROOT: I think you really see two different records. You could look at the difference between 1995 and 1999; it is really pretty radical. In 1995, not too long after taking office, they ended surprise inspections of manufacturing plants. You see a sort of downward trend beginning in fines being collected. And this was a bipartisan deal here. The Tejas [ph] testing, which was the tailpipe testing program was basically done away with. The company that was hired to do the tailpipe testing ended up suing the state successfully -that was like $150,000,000.

MR. WOLENS: $130,000,000

MR. ROOT: $130,000,000. In 1999 a lot of people, environmentalists included - and I’d be interested in hearing from Steve Wolens what the factor was that in ’99 there was a big change. I remember this coming up at a press conference. He changed his position on global warming. I mean it was like "boom." One day it was - I remember it had been a month before there had been a drought or something. There had been a lot of bad weather. And some body asked him, "What about global warming?" He had said a month earlier, sometime in February or March, that he didn't think that the verdict was out on global warming. Then, toward the end of the session, he switched positions and said he did believe there was evidence of global warming. And, also, he dropped the voluntary approach to bringing companies into modern--utility companies, anyway, that part of it, into modern compliance with clean air rules. And a lot of environmentalists were really surprised by that because that was a pretty significant change.

And I think one factor was that the utility companies actually were paid part of the stranded costs. They were allowed to really be paid to clean up the air.

MR. WOLENS: They were still opposed to it. Even with that they were still opposed to it and I don't know why.

MR. DIONNE: I want to turn to David and also start asking for a show of hands in the audience.

MR. BROOKS: I want to get to a few other issues, including foreign policy. But first, let's talk about judges, which is something we haven't talked about in this series. And this is mostly because this is our first governor. "Texas Lawyer" magazine said this of Bush's judicial picks. They said that Bush's judicial picks are not extreme; they are political moderates. And one of the political scientists at the University of Texas said, "The questionnaire that the Bush administration sends out seems to be comparable to the review that the Reagan administration used to do, but the only difference is that the Reagan administration used to be focused on ideological appointments and its questionnaire was designed so that people were pure in ideology. The Bush questionnaire is not focused on ideology but on reputation and ability."

Now, appointing these judges is going to be a major job for the next President. I'm not sure who to direct this question to but does anybody have a view on how those judges--would we get a bench of Souters or of Scalias, right.

MR. DIONNE: Whom he has described as his favorite Justice, Governor Bush has.

MR. BROOKS: Right.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Steve is an attorney and a member of the Texas Bar, so is my wife. But--

MR. WOLENS: And, so are you.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Not the Texas Bar.

MR. WOLENS: But in your State, you are.

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Well, yes, absolutely. And I've talked with Governor Bush about judges because I think it's very, very important. And he has addressed this many times on the campaign trail already talking about judges who will interpret the Constitution and the statute, who will not seek to become another legislative branch.

And I think that is the kind of men and women he's going to look for and I think he's committed to reaching into a wide range of types of people, great diversity. There's some of that shown in his appointments in Texas, I believe; persons with disabilities, minorities, but I do think that there is going to have to be a fidelity to that fundamental principle.

And I think that under George Bush that Federal judicial legislating would begin to decline and that's very important in my judgment in terms of how we restore the balance of power and respect the separation of power.

MR. DIONNE: Chuck Jones?

MR. JONES: I wanted to ask E. J.’s question in a little different way. And that is for you to compare the job of Governor of Michigan with the job as you've heard of the Governor of Texas to help us understand a little bit more the experience. I know in Wisconsin, as you know, Governor Thompson could veto Illinois and make it stick.

[Laughter.]

MR. JONES: And relatedly then, how likely is he to rely on governors in his governing for advice or otherwise?

GOVERNOR ENGLER: Well, I would suggest heavily.

[Laughter.]

GOVERNOR ENGLER: That he would rely on heavy governors, I'm not sure.

[Laughter.]

GOVERNOR ENGLER: You know, it seems to me that he would, I think, draw from the ranks of governors, I hope when it comes time for cabinet service. You mentioned the great governor of Wisconsin, I think would be ideal. I could see Tommy in something like education or HHS and doing a splendid job.

But I think he, in comparing the jobs, the question real briefly is that Governor Bush, as the Republican governor, has the largest state and there is something--he's got a border state so the experience just as in Michigan we deal with Canadian provincial officials, he's dealing with Mexican state officials, as well as the central government even perhaps more than we might with, say Ottawa, on the North.

He is somebody because of the range of experiences that you have in a governor's office, you may have three or four priorities you want to focus on but the point has been made that in these major executive jobs you never know what is going to land on your doorstep. And they'll come up.

I mean we saw him head back to Texas right from Michigan because of a shooting that took place in a church. I mean these things happen, and they are unexpected and how you deal with them is part of how you serve--Governor Keating in Oklahoma with these natural disasters.

So, I think that the experiences of governors, we all have different constitutions, different authorities but there is a commonality to that experience of being an executive, picking your key leaders, department posts, making appointments to the judiciary and Governor Bush, to his strength during the debates and especially sort of increasingly as we've been in these debates, has drawn on that executive experience to sort of separate himself from our field of six. I mean three who have never been elected to anything and, therefore, aren't about to be nominated for anything and then the other two who are members of the U.S. Senate, and have that legislative experience there, but I just think that the comparison is self-evident for all to see.

MR. DIONNE: Governor Engler raised Mexico and Canada which allows us to pivot nicely into a foreign policy question. And this is not a panel to ask the details of his positions on foreign policy but on the question of decision making there has been at times in this campaign a pattern of caution and very slow responses. Kosovo, in particular, where it took him several days to even formulate a position.

Senator McCain was out there, I think it was the first opening he gave McCain in the course of the campaign and in a completely different area in terms of slowness of response on Pat Buchanan and his politics it took him time to respond to that. Frank Bruni noted in the New York Times or suggested that message discipline is so strong in the Bush campaign that he may be uneasy in responding to new situations.

Can anyone on the panel who has dealt with him talk about this not so much in light, as I said, of his particular foreign policy positions but a kind of caution and, a programmed quality to some of his campaign that may reflect the way he might govern.

Does anyone want to take that?

MR. HAWKINS: Let me talk about my experience with him as governor. And, you know, that experience has been that he's a very instinctive kind of decision maker. I mean I think he makes clear and strong decisions but I think one of the things that I've recognized most is that he has a great sense of timing as to when a decision is necessary.

I mean he knows when it's time to make the decision, he understands very clearly when there's more understanding that needs to be gathered before an appropriate decision is made. And, so, I think there are some very clear and strong instincts that get involved in his decision making.

MR. D