How Would George W. Bush Govern?

July 31, 2000

Transcript prepared from a tape recording

Moderators:	E.J.Dionne, Washington Post
	David Brooks, Weekly Standard
Panelists:	Hon. Teel Bivins, Texas State Senator
	Hon. Mike Johanns, governor of Nebraska
	C. Boyden Gray, Esq., former counsel to Bush Administration
	Fred Greenstein, professor, Princeton University
	Dan Balz, political reporter, Washington Post
	David McNeely, political columnist, Austin American Statesman
Project Directors:	Norman Ornstein, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute
	Thomas Mann, senior fellow, Brookings Institution

Proceedings:

MR. ORNSTEIN: --underway.

I'm Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute and co-director of the Transition To Governing Project, along with my colleague, Tom Mann, of The Brookings Institution, a project funded generously by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which is designed to try and bring a focus to governing during the campaign, and to try to improve the process of making a transition to governing when the campaign ends, and we get people elected to move into that process of governing.

This is the seventh in a series of sessions that we've been running this year on how the candidates for President would govern.

We began with four during the primary season, on the four major candidates in the two parties, we did two in June on how would Al Gore, respectively, George Bush, govern in foreign policy, and now we're doing this session during the Republican convention on how would George Bush govern, and another, as you'll see from the little flier, at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles on how would Al Gore govern. We followed the same format with all of these sessions, which is to get two--I guess I can use the word "distinguished journalists" to moderate.

MR. : Thanks for that, Norm.

MR. ORNSTEIN: I don't want their heads to get too large.

David Brooks of The Weekly Standard, who's a senior editor, a contributing editor at Newsweek, a commentator on National Public Radio, who also had served as a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, including editor of the op-ed page, and who is the author of the new, best-selling book, "Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class And How They Got There," published by Simon & Schuster this year, and if you were around last night, post-convention doings, you saw him on Booknotes on C-SPAN, eloquently discussing his book.

E.J. Dionne, at the other end of the table, a columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution. He'd been a reporter, an editorial writer for the Post, served as a correspondent for the New York Times in various places abroad, and his book, "Why Americans Hate Politics"--one of his books--he has a more recent book called "They're Not Dead Yet"--was published by Simon & Schuster in 1991, and widely acclaimed.

We have a panel of six people, including those who have worked closely with the candidate, those who covered the candidate as reporters, and those who have supported and been involved with the candidate for some years, and let me introduce the panelists. Then I'm going to turn things over to Tom for just a moment, and then we will begin our session.

The session will have some give-and-take, and then we'll have some opportunity for questions from the floor as well.

Starting closest to me is Dan Balz, who's national political correspondent at the Washington Post. He has served at the Washington Post in various capacities, including a national editor, Southwest Texas Bureau Chief for 22 years, starting just out of high school, apparently, but while in high school he also worked at the National Journal, and briefly at a paper--I'm not familiar with this one--the Philadelphia Inquirer, is it? Okay. And comes to us, originally, from Illinois.

Teel Bivins has served in the Texas Senate since 1989, currently in his fourth term. The district that he serves, the 31st, runs from the top of the Panhandle down to Midland, where George W. Bush was born, as I remember, and Odessa. He's chairman of the Education Committee where he served for two terms, and he's also on the Natural Resources Committee and vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, president pro tempore of the Senate during the '76 regular session, and was a critical player and the author of the school finance legislation, Senate Bill 4, which is a very well-known and important piece of legislation.

Boyden Gray, or C. Boyden Gray, to make it more formal, is a partner in Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, dealing with a wide range of areas, but has been known to people in the policy and political processes for a long time, combining careers in politics and government with a distinguished legal career. He began out of Harvard Law School, having been a Tarheel before that, clerking for Chief Justice Earl Warren. Then moved into the practice of law, moved up to be legal counsel to Vice President George Bush, served as counsel to the presidential Task Force on Regulatory Relief, director of the Office of Transition, and then became counsel to President Bush. He also serves as chairman of Citizens For A Sound Economy.

Governor Mike Johanns is the governor of Nebraska, elected in 1998, has been of course engaged in a whole series of policy areas as governor, including enacting the relief to the Property Taxpayers Act, and focused on foreign trade, very important in Nebraska, and other kinds of tax relief and agricultural issues, previously serving as mayor of Lincoln, Nebraska, from 1991 to 1998.

Fred Greenstein is a professor of politics at Princeton University where he is Henry Luce Professor of Politics, Law and Society. He served as that professor for a number of years and is chairman of the Department of Politics as well. Fred is one of our most distinguished presidential scholars, has written a number of books, including the definitive treatment of the Eisenhower presidency, "The Hidden Hand Presidency," and very recently has published this book--I would have held up "Bobos In Paradise" but we didn't have a copy with us--"The Presidential Difference: The Presidential Leadership Style from FDR To Clinton," which looks at the last 11 Presidents and the qualities that make a difference in governing.

Fred has also watched all of the previous sessions that we have done, and will, I think, integrate some of the insights from them into this panel as well.

Finally, Dave McNeely has been covering Texas politics in one form, or another, since before George Herbert Walker Bush was in Congress. He was a reporter for the Daily Texan at the University of Texas and has worked in Dallas, Houston, and in Washington, and has been a political columnist for the Austin American Statesman for more than two decades.

Now before we begin, I just want to add one little disclaimer, which is that neither I nor Tom, nor E.J. nor David, nor the Pew Charitable Trusts, or anybody associated with this project, endorses any candidate. This is not a session for support or encouragement, or bashing, and let me note that as in the previous sessions that we have done, we have tried to do the un-Crossfire. We have have an interest in entertaining and enlightening but not in infotainment. So we hope to have a lively session but not a lot of yelling and screaming, and, with that, let me turn things over to David Brooks. Whoops. Let me turn things over to Tom Mann.

MR. MANN: But only for 30 seconds. Just on behalf of Brookings, I want to thank our panelists for agreeing to be with us today. We really think we've demonstrated it's possible to be not Crossfire, but to be not boring at the same time. E.J. and David have turned into a dynamic duo. We're here, as Norman said, neither to endorse nor to bury any candidate, but simply to shed some light on how they might actually govern after the election, and this has been "a moveable feast," if you will.

We began in January, and each time we have a new event, we have new information, new evidence to factor in. Now, Governor Bush has elected Dick Cheney as his running mate. That tells us something about, I think, his approach to governing.

The Bush campaign has elevated the question of process to the center of their campaign. We hear a lot of talk about restoring civility and diminishing bitter partisanship. We need to talk about that, and say to what extent does that give us some handle on how they would govern in office.

With that, I turn it over to E.J. and David. Thank you.

MR. BROOKS: Thanks, Tom.

Well, I thought we'd first get in the spirit of the convention and call this "a panel with a purpose," which is the Bush mode. But then I thought that by the end of the week, we'll be so sick of sweet and treacly, uplifting stories, that even the Philadelphia Quakers are going to be "calling for blood."

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: So I thought, then, in the spirit of Arianna Huffington, we'd call it the "shadow panel." So I just would urge the panelists, if you feel the urge to summon the armies of compassion, please resist that urge. No uplifting stories. We've already, I see, got a panel of white males, which I think is forbidden at the Republican Convention, and also, in contrast, we will try to talk about substance, and it even might be permissible to talk about politics.

So, just with that, we'd ask people--we've been a little more structured in the past events, going down the row, and trying to get people one at a time, but I'd encourage people to interact a little more because you all are experts on the different general subject areas we're going to talk about, and the first one will be what sort of Republican is George W. Bush, a new one or an old one, and for the first question, E.J.

MR. DIONNE: I just want to say two quick things. One is David was too humble to say that his next book is going to be called "Bobos In The White House: The New Political Class And What They Buy, Eat, And Wear." Ever since I've been doing this with David, I cannot look around anywhere without thinking of do they or do they not fall into his bobo categories.

One other thing I want to say, quickly, is I am so glad my friend, Dan Balz, from the Washington Post is here. He led me to a moment of unintended self-revelation once. I worked a lot with Dan in '92, and I was talking to somebody about how much fun it was to work with Dan, and I said, you know, Dan is really an unusual journalist. He's a really moral person. Then I stopped dead in my tracks, and I said, "So that's what you think of your profession."

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: So I am very grateful that Dan is here.

We've asked a lot of general questions here, and as David said, to kind of break with the spirit of the next four days, I'm going to go right into the middle of the subject and begin with a question to--[audio out--briefly]--Governor Bush, Democrats in Texas. Yet one of the things we've learned from these panels and from a lot of good reporting out of Texas is how different Texas Democrats are, for the most part, from national Democrats.

Another way of saying it is that an awful lot of Texas Democrats would be Republicans almost anywhere else [audio out--briefly] of Massachusetts.

I wonder if you could talk about that, if you could talk about what do we really learn from his ability to work with Democrats in Texas, and where might that not be such a good lesson for how he would govern in Washington?

SENATOR BIVINS: Well, E.J., we think our Democrats are real Democrats.

[Laugher.]

SENATOR BIVINS: They certainly act like it in the Texas Senate and the Texas House. But I think that what you have heard from others who have worked with Governor Bush is that his single strongest trait is his enormous ability to get people to like him, and once you do that, it's a lot easier to persuade people to do your bidding.

This enormous personal charm, especially one on one, has served him well working with members of the Texas Senate and the Texas House. Certainly, when he arrived in Austin, he was bipartisan because he had to be, because we didn't have a controlling majority in the Senate, and we certainly had a minority in the House of Representatives.

So from the very beginning, he used those charms, I think, very, very skillfully. Probably maybe my best example is the social promotion legislation that we passed in the Texas Senate in this last session. We were the first state to pass this type of legislation, which prohibits the practice of just shuffling kids through the process, and there was enormous mistrust on the part of Democrats in the Senate, that we were adding more high-stakes tests to students, many of whom were their constituents, that they felt like were least able to succeed, and, therefore, these would be discriminatory.

Yet, after a lot of work, a lot of explaining on the part of Governor Bush, his staff--I might add, myself--we got a unanimous vote out of the Texas Senate. Now, there was a political cartoon in Dave's newspaper not long after that, that showed two janitors standing in the Texas Senate, and one is saying to the other, "You think that's something? I left a roll a paper towels in here last week and they voted it out 27 to four."

[Laughter.]

SENATOR BIVINS: So we do get criticized for that but it's, I think, largely because the Senate, because of a procedural rule that we have that requires a two-thirds vote to pass any piece of legislation, has to do their work beforehand, not necessarily on the floor like they do in the House.

But I think that was probably a great example of his abilities to exert his personal charm and, therefore, get people to do his bidding.

MR. DIONNE: Dave McNeely, if we could go right to you then. If we could first ask you to talk about the charm as a leadership style with the Democrats, but also vis-a-vis the Republicans, particularly the conservative Republicans. There's talk of a feud between Bush and Tom Pauken [ph] and some of the more conservative members of the Party down there.

Does it always work? Are there examples where it hasn't?

MR. McNEELY: I think it works, for the most part. I think that the Governor's personality is pretty powerful. I think as Senator Bivins more or less alluded, as recently as 1965, out of 31 senators and 150 House members, there was one member of the Texas legislature who was a Republican. He could hold his caucus in a phone booth. Since then they've gradually increased in numbers, and as Senator Bivins said, that at the start of George Bush's tenure, there was a Democratic majority in the Texas Senate, and so to work with them, and particularly given the two-thirds rule, he had to use the power of his personality and the ability to work with the members of the legislature in order to be able to get anything done.

He worked very closely with, and matter of fact, they became close friends with Paul Sadler, the Democrat who chaired the Education Committee in the House, and that personal touch, I think of the Governor, has really made a great deal of difference.

From the time he became Governor, there was one day, about two months into the session, his first legislative session, when I was standing outside the capitol, and happened to notice these nine well-dressed men and women sort a shuffling up the street, and I stopped and looked, and it was the members of the Texas Supreme Court. So I asked the Chief Justice, who's a Republican, I said, you know, "Where have you all been?" He said, "Well, we've just been over to the mansion for lunch with the Governor, Secretary of State, and a couple other people." Then one of the Democrats pulled me aside, and he said, "I tried to get Ann Richards to do this for four years, and she never would."

I think that that, to me, was an early demonstration of how Bush was really going to be working to develop personal relationships with as many people who were going to affect legislation as possible.

MR. DIONNE: I want to go to the Governor, but I'd like to ask Dan Balz, who actually covered Texas, as well as covering this campaign, what your take is on this, what you've learned from looking at his relationship with the legislature and with Democrats.

MR. BALZ: It certainly scores with everything that both Senator Bivins and Dave have said. In my trips down to Texas, since Governor Bush was elected, and particularly over the last year and a half, as he's been gearing up to run, and has been running, every conversation I have had with somebody in the legislature has been revealing in the sense that they talk about him, both because of the personal charm, and the contrast to Ann Richards and the way she dealt with the legislature.

The question that I have always had about Governor Bush and his relationship with the Texas Democrats as opposed to what might be national, first of all, is is there a Bob Bullock lurking somewhere in Washington who will, in essence, make a deep and serious friendship with Governor Bush, that could become crucial in the way he is able to govern, if he becomes President.

MR. DIONNE: Could you tell us a little bit about Bob Bullock while you're there, because that's very important and it's going to play a role in the convention this week, too.

MR. BALZ: Bob Bullock was the lieutenant governor, long-time Democratic powerhouse in Texas, and as most of you know, the lieutenant governor in Texas has as much or more power than the Governor because of the weak governorship of the constitution in that state.

Before he was even elected, Governor Bush reached out to Bob Bullock, had a couple a private sessions with him, and they "hit it off." I mean, clearly, Bob Bullock liked Bush and Bush liked Bullock. But they were able to develop the kind of relationship that really is unprecedented in modern Washington experience, that I can think of.

I'm not sure that Governor Bush would have been as successful in Texas, had he not had that friendship with Governor [sic] Bullock. The other aspect that I think is different, and you alluded to this, is that I think that the Texas legislative climate, even though there clearly is partisanship, and as Republicans have become a stronger force in the state, there is clearly electoral competition that goes on, but there has always been a much greater kind of spirit of camaraderie and working together.

It's my recollection that there have been Republicans chairing Senate committees even as the Democrats controlled the state senate there. So that you have a kind of a different atmosphere and ethic in the Texas legislature than you have had in Washington, certainly over the last decade, where legislative politics are very much part of electoral politics. They have been designed, in many ways, to be polarizing, to create issues for elections, to try to advance one party or the other.

Governor Bush obviously is campaigning on the theme that he will change that, or wants to try to change that in Washington, but I don't know that you can simply export the Texas model to Washington, willy-nilly, and assume that it will work. I think it will take a lot of hard work and it will require some receptivity on the part of the Democrats, that it's hard to tell at this point whether it will be there.

MR. McNEELY: Let me say, briefly, about the, particularly the Texas House of Representatives. The lieutenant governor is foisted upon the Senate as their leader, though they could change that in their rules, if they so chose, and Bob Bullock, in order to remain in power, had to bring the Republicans in. In the House, it's been more of what I've come to call a "good ol' boy" system, of personal popularity rather than any kind of partisan division, because it's only in the last four decades that we've gone from a completely, 100 percent Democratic legislature, and so beginning with House Speaker "Gib" Lewis [ph] back in the early '80s, the initial core of his group that helped him gain the speakership, even though he was a Democrat, was the block of Republicans.

That was his sort a starting point, and that type of inclusion has continued with subsequent speakers who have kept Republicans very much in the fold.

MR. DIONNE: I want anybody to keep alluding back to this because I think this is a fascinating--sort of this comparison is very helpful to us. But I wanted to ask the Governor, that there is almost a contradiction in Governor Bush's reputation among governors. On the one hand, almost all Republican governors liked him, so many endorsed him, they say he's smart, able, and the like. Yet in some of the same reporting, you learn that the governor did not have a reputation in all of these governors' meetings as being heavily engaged with issues the way, say, a certain governor named Bill Clinton was. He has not been active in formulating new policy at the national level.

Both of these things seem true at the same time, and I wonder if you could either dissent from the question or clarify how you see this distinction.

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: I would probably start out and offer some dissent to the question. I know of few governors out there that are as well-respected amongst his colleagues as George W. Bush would be, and that's for certain. We have some outstanding governors out there, but George W. Bush is just universally respected.

The other thing I would mention here, that I think is enormously important, and I made a note of this so I would not forget to mention it. That is, never underestimate the likability factor in elections and in governing. George Bush, amongst his colleagues, is not only admired but he's liked, and that's true on both sides of the aisle.

I think what George Bush has done so effectively with governors, but also in this process, is he's recognized that people are pretty tired of this partisan bickering. You know, if it's the Republicans' idea, then the Democrats say, well, that's a bad idea, and if it's the Democrats' idea, then the Republicans say it's a bad idea.

George Bush just heads out in a vastly different way. I think, assuming he becomes President, I think the first things you're going to see from him is this real strong attempt to reach out across the aisle. That's what he's done with governors, that's what he's done in the state, and I just don't see him veering off that pathway, if he were to become President.

I think you're going to see meetings at the White House, or in their offices, where he's reaching out to the other side of the aisle, not just the leadership, but to the rank-and-file members of the House and the Senate.

MR. DIONNE: I'd like to ask Boyden Gray--

SENATOR BIVINS: Can I jump in, real quick, and say that--two things. First of all, George W. Bush is not Bill Clinton. He is not a detail-oriented, policy wonk kind of a guy, and what this body--or your association--and I've also read in the press--indicates as disinterest in issues, I see as incredible political discipline. George W. Bush looks at the State of Texas, figures out what he thinks are the foremost important issues facing the state, and that's all he talked about in the campaign, and what were the four major bills that passed his first session? Those four issues. He's said, oftentimes, he doesn't want to waste political capital on issues that he doesn't believe are the top priority.

So I don't believe it's lack of interest or ill-preparedness. I think it's remarkable political discipline that keeps him like he has, in this campaign, staying on message, and I believe that's been misinterpreted.

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: I think that's an excellent point, and that does describe, in a very, very succinct way, what George W. Bush is really all about. It is a very disciplined message. I think when you see him as President, he is going to target areas, education being a perfect example because it was such a priority in his agenda in Texas, and he's going to go right down that list, and he's going to focus on those issues, and he's going to convince people that those are the very important issues that must be addressed.

One of the things you find out as governor, very early on, is that you can't touch every issue. You just can't and get an agenda passed. So he looked out across Texas and he said, here are the four issues that I think are enormously important, let's focus on these four issues, and he's had tremendous success in those areas--tremendous success.

MR. DIONNE: Maybe we could just ask Boyden Gray, and Fred Greenstein, before we go any further, to address this Austin versus Washington issue, whether this style of camaraderie can translate into a city which is A, more partisan, and B, just a lot bigger.

Maybe starting with Boyden Gray, could you--you know, you worked, you must have seen George W. Bush when you were working for Bush, the father, in the transition, and then the firing of John Sununu, and other legendary episodes.

Is that style something that you think can work, you know, realistically, in a city that, you know, is as big and as partisan as this one?

MR. GRAY: I'm skeptical. I'd love to hear what Fred has to say but I'm skeptical that charm will do it alone. You know, President Bush had lots of charm, and I don't think it got him that far. I think the more important point is the focus on the few issues. I think that's what is very Reaganesque, if you will. Governor Bush's father had the opportunity and also the disadvantage of having to deal with a lot of foreign policy crises, so he could never really form a coherent domestic policy message, and I remember, when he was going to deliver a major address that was scheduled weeks in advance, but ended up being on the day the Gulf War ended. So there sort a went his domestic--and after that, he just said, you know, I'm never going to get any traction on domestic issues. Maybe he gave up too soon.

But Governor Bush has learned from the lesson of Reagan and his four points, and reiterating them over and over and over, much to the utter dismay of the press, I might say, is--I think he's going to carry it forward, and that's going to be more important, I believe, than his charm, although of course, obviously, his charm doesn't hurt, and when you see him in public, going over the heads of the press, if you will, the way Reagan did, his charm will translate, I believe, to the public, in the same way that Reagan's did.

MR. GREENSTEIN: Well, Boyden--I'm glad you mentioned Reagan. It seems to me, from my outside of Washington, outside of Texas prism, which is more on the 11 predecessors of the next President, that there may be two Presidents who give us some leverage on this. One is an earlier Texan, Lyndon Johnson, with his great impulse, as somebody said, when Johnson was Senate Majority Leader, "His gift was to divide by two and add one," and it seems to me that that this kind of coalition-building, which must be in the groundwater somewhere in Texas, if you think about Rayburn and Jim Baker, and so on, all of these people who have been so good at coalition-building--I think the question may be not so much, you know, how perfect is the analogy between the Texas legislature and Texas politics, and the national scene, but, rather, is this person a coalition-builder, a problem-solver, somebody who looks for the way to put the pieces together, and that seems to me to be, from what I can tell from the outside, very characteristic of George W. Bush.

Now, switching then to the Reagan comparison, one thing that was very important for Reagan, and I think has been a fault of both George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton, is the failure to focus, identify issues.

I think we've underestimated the extent to which George W. has learned from his father's experience, and that's something that Boyden just brought out. His father did very well, had the highest poll numbers after Desert Storm, that we've seen in the history of presidential polling, but really had not enough of a visible agenda to weather the decline of the economy in the final year of his presidency.

As I see from my secondhand perspective, George W., this is someone who's learned, very strongly, the notion of having some issues, being on message, and the charm seems to me also to be Reaganesque. What's obviously missing is the Reagan "Great Communicator" style. This man is clearly not a silver-tongued orator. He talks about inspiration, but, fortunately, he's running against someone whose style is kind of Sominex-inducing. So they're kind of a tradeoff, or a "wash" in terms of communication to the public.

But if you think about Reagan's first year, I mean, this was someone who came in, and it really was "It's the economy, Stupid." It was very much "on message," focus on achieving the budget spending cuts, and the military spending increases, which were put together with dramatic consequences by August of the first year of the Reagan presidency.

Now, where Reagan--and I think where there's a parallel here, is that Reagan, who was often contrasted by people in the Washington community with the standoffish Jimmy Carter, Reagan was someone who attempted to ingratiate himself across the political spectrum. I think it did him well. You know, he was happy to swap anecdotes, and so on, with "Tip" O'Neill. He didn't engage in ideological confrontation. What he was also able to do during that first year was every so often use the media with great eloquence and great effectiveness, and I think often his impact, and the way he used the media, was not so much on the-- directly on the general public, but on politicians' perceptions, that if this guy communicates so well, he must have enormous support.

So a month to the day after the assassination attempt, he gives a dramatic and also very witty presentation to a joint session of Congress, and then, when they finally didn't have enough votes to put together the economic package that passed and that he signed in August, the first thing he does is get the swing, particularly conservative Democrats, up to Camp David, has a barbecue for them, and so on, charms them. But when he still doesn't have enough votes, he goes on television and, meanwhile, his people engineer communications from the districts, and they turn around people like Congressman Stenholm.

So how much of this kind of thing George W. can put across, I don't know, but I sense that he's not trapped in the box of thinking that Washington would be Texas, and it can't hurt him, that his father, after all, was President.

MR. DIONNE: Boyden, did you want to add something?

MR. GRAY: Well, just an obvious point that most Democratic Presidents have had Democratic Houses and Senates with them. Johnson. Of course Kennedy. I think the only time a Republican President, in the last century, had both Houses, was the first two years of Eisenhower. Reagan had the Senate for six years, and when he lost the Senate, in many ways, his presidency collapsed. President Bush didn't have anything to help him. I think it's a real possibility Governor Bush will have a Republican House and Republican Senate. Who knows? But if he does, it's a very different question than if he had a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, and we ought to come to grips with that at some point.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you. I think there are four big issues we need to put on the table, and I want to welcome the audience to jump in, at any point, with some questions for the panel. I think we need to cover the--we have a number of decisions he's already made. One is on the Social Security partial privatization. The second is the big tax cut. The third is the creation of compassionate conservatism, and the fourth is the choice of Cheney.

I'm wondering if I could start with Dan. His decision to come out with a substantial, or, in some people's eyes, radical Social Security plan surprised a lot of Republicans. I wonder who thought why take this risk in the campaign. I wonder if you could talk about your reporting on that, and how he got to that point, and why, and then I'd love other people on the panel to comment on that.

Dan?

MR. BALZ: I had a conversation with one of Bush's economic advisers, the week that he unveiled the Secret Service plan, and we talked a little bit about some of the early meetings the team had had in Austin in 1999, when Governor Bush was having people down to begin to formulate broader policy questions, and to kind of explore a lot of the options that were out there, and this was John Cogan, who's at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and he said that from the very first time they talked about Social Security, it was clear that Governor Bush had in mind his own sense of the principles that he wanted to advance.

In John Cogan's retelling of this, this was not one in which the economic advisers kind of pushed him in a particular direction, but that he came to this issue from the beginning, with the idea that he wanted to do something like this.

Now as he's made clear in the campaign, he's not wedded to this particular detail or that particular detail, which is an important part, I think, of his governing style. But the other element of this that I think is important is that the campaign sees this in a political context as a proxy for the leadership issue.

I think one of the things that they are trying to do in this campaign is to present Governor Bush as a leader, and that by taking on Social Security and by doing it in a fairly dramatic way, they are hoping that that will accrue to them some credit for Bush being a bold leader, so that people will--it's not that they will ignore the detail of what the final product may look like, but they will be a little less concerned about some of the potentially controversial aspects about it, and think of Bush as somebody who is willing, as they put it, to touch the third rail of American politics, and, at the same time, show that he is decisive and forward-looking in trying to attack a problem that, essentially, Washington has defaulted on for the last four or five years.

So I think those were two of the elements that went into their thinking as they put it together.

MR. BROOKS: Is this sort of risk-taking familiar to people in Austin, or is Cheney what seems like a more cautious Bush--is that the familiar Bush?

SENATOR BIVINS: I'd say that when you look at his terms as Governor, the proposal to radically restructure the school finance system and our taxing system in Texas, was much more akin to his Social Security proposal. It was not at all shy and retiring. It was a bold move, at a time--you know, representative self-government, in my estimation, is reactive by its very nature. We react to crises. It's almost never that we, legislative bodies, act proactively, and we certainly; don't do it in the absence of extraordinary leadership.

Now we wound up coming very close to radically restructuring the taxing system in Texas, and, at the last minute, fell back to just the largest tax cuts in the state's history. But it was his leadership, I believe, that got us that close to the cuff [?]. This is kind of "inside baseball" talk because nobody really cares if the bill didn't pass. But the reality is, any other governor couldn't have even gotten close to what we did in 1997, and I believe that that was principle-driven. He, I think, rightly has assumed that reliance on the property tax is going to doom public education in Texas, unless we shift the tax base, and without a court order, or without a budget crisis, he took on a huge initiative that came very close to passing.

MR. : Senator--

MR. McNEELY: Well, let me point out that it was the Republicans in the Senate that killed that.

SENATOR BIVINS: Well, some Republicans.

[Laughter.]

MR. BALZ: I mean, I think David's question is a very good one, because I think there is kind of an inherent contradiction in the way Bush operates. I recall having a conversation with him--it must have been in the spring of--well, it may have been the spring of '98--in which we talked about the failed effort to get the changes in the school finance system, and I had the feeling, coming away from that conversation, that he had no appetite, at all, to go back at this again. That he had tried it once, he had done what he thought was a bold and brave thing, it did not come together, he was not able to put it together, and, in many ways, as you all can tell better than I, that issue kind a got away from him in the legislature as it was going through, particularly in the House, and having failed to do that once he was not going to try it again.

It said to me that this is a person who may try some of these things but he is very attuned to sort of where the political consensus is, and he will not get very far away from that political consensus, and I think that's basically what he's saying about Social Security. He's willing to put this on the table and willing to take a risk in the campaign to try to defuse an issue that has always hurt Republicans in campaigns. But he is essentially saying I'm going to leave it to a bipartisan group of people to try to work out the details, and it's my sense that if those details can be worked out, he will be happy to sign it, and if they don't, he'll mark it down as another bold plan that didn't go very far.

MR. BROOKS: That's a very interesting point. I'd love to ask Dave and the Senator to come back to that, because the irony of what he did on schooling, and on restructuring education, taxing, and spending, is he got a lot of credit for proposing a bold plan, but it was also a failure, but that failure turned out to be politically helpful because you passed a tax cut. So instead of talking about the bold plan, he can now brag on a tax cut. So it's a very strange set of events. I wonder if Dave and the Senate could talk about that, without, by the way, getting into the excruciating details, which we once did at an earlier session.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: Dave? Or Senator? Either one.

MR. McNEELY: Go ahead, Senator.

SENATOR BIVINS: Well, you know, when we started this session in '97, we knew we were going in with a budget surplus, and he, early on, in the fall proceeding the '97 session, staked his claim to a billion, 100 million dollars. He said that is going to be used for tax cuts, and that rankled the feathers of the Democrat chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and caught my good friend and colleague, who's been on this panel, Senator Ratliff, who was chair of Senate Finance, a little by surprise. But he jumped out and claimed it, and that formed the base of what then was--the rest of the program was a tax shift. Let's change our reliance from so heavy on the property tax to a broader-based, essentially state sales tax, because as you know we don't have a personal income tax in Texas, and that's like the third rail of Texas politics. You just don't go there.

So he had that as the base, and then he laid out a plan, a tax shift plan that really made the law firms and the CPA firms, and the service industry "hot" because it recognized that the largest and fastest-growing sector of the state's economy is the service sector, and yet, they basically don't pay any taxes. So he proposed a type of value-added tax that got ditched pretty quick. Then, as Dan said, the House came up with a much bolder plan than even Bush had laid out, and there is some debate over whether he endorsed it. My recollection is he said, "Let's move the process along. We gotta get something out of the Senate so we can get to conference committee."

But when we got to conference committee, the Senate was much more sullen, as Dave points out, we wanted to do a lot less than the House did, and it was like trying to build a bridge over the Grand Canyon with no scaffolding underneath. I mean, every time you got closer to the Senate side you lost House votes, and vice-versa.

So I was in the office the day that he pulled the plug. I watched that happen. It may have been the most moving moment I've had in my public life, and at a time when he saw his personal initiative of two and a half years ending, he still had the ability to go back and focus on the prize, which was the tax cut, get that done, and on a personal note, still have a joke for the staff and a twinkle in his eye, and a sense of, well, all right, let's not dwell on this; let's move on. It was a very moving moment for me.

MR. McNEELY: I think Governor Bush has said this about himself, is that he only has so much political capital to risk, and he says he is willing to use it, but that was the only time that I really saw him use it. Senator Bivins may have a different recollection. As Dan said, once he had used it and it didn't work, he didn't try it again.

MR. : Governor—

SENATOR BIVINS: Just quickly, I'd say social promotion was where he really used some political capital, but it kind a got covered up, as you know, but we won't have to go into those details. But I think that was a place he did--

MR. McNEELY: One of the things to point out, while talking about Governor Bush staying on message, and having these points that he wanted to pass, three of the four major issues that he had for his first legislative session, and that he also campaigned on, were already the subjects of interim legislative committee hearings. I mean, it's not as though these were new ideas, necessarily, and what he did was help put some top spin on that.

MR. DIONNE: Dave, I just want to go back--I want to keep going on these issues, but Mr. Gray intelligently and prudently didn't answer your earlier question about the Sununu firing, and I'm wondering if--you know--because it is one of those cases I've been thinking, listening to these sessions, about the likability of George Bush, a volume we will not see is "Why I Love George Bush" by John Sununu, and I'm wondering if you could tell us about--this is a case where he did a very hard thing on behalf of his father, an unpleasant thing, if you will.

Could you give us some enlightenment on that?

MR. GRAY: You're asking me?

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: You were there; not in that room.

MR. GRAY: You know, there's a big, big debate about this, and I have never sat down with Governor Bush, and I don't think I will on this issue, for sure, to determine exactly what happened. President Bush had--I won't bore you with the details--but he had an oral history project, Miller Center, at University of Virginia, Charlottesville, came up to Kennebunkport earlier in the summer, and a bunch of us went up. It was a very sort of interesting grouping, at times, and I asked the academics there about this question.

There were three of us--Dorrance Smith and Andy Card and I, who were sent in to do the "dirty deed." This is not well-known, publicly. I don't think it's known at all. The question was did we go in before or after the Governor? The not-yet Governor. I think the consensus among the academics is, trying to piece together what happened over that Thanksgiving weekend, is that we went in after. That it didn't take. When Governor Bush went in, it didn't work.

[Laughter.]

MR. GRAY: So we were cobbled--

MR. : So another failure, along with education.

[Laughter.]

MR. GRAY: So we were cobbled up to go in, and Andy Card being the senior, was the one who was supposed to speak. We were talking with President Bush in the Oval Bush. Then we went in to see Sununu, and Sununu sort of leaned back, and said, "All right, gentlemen, what is it?" and Andy Card, who sort of worked for, understandably, worked with Sununu, the cat got his tongue, and he sat there, his mouth moved but not a single sound emitted.

Dorrance Smith was--I mean, he would never talk, and he liked to get other people to talk, and, you know, the Brinkley Show and Nightline. But he never talked. So I'm sitting there, staring. The Governor's staring at me, and I'm staring at him, and I say, "Governor, it's time to go," and he said, "Well, the President's quite mistaken and I'll have to talk to him about it." I said, "No. I don't think so. I don't think you're going to talk to him about it." I think this is--we're trying to talk to you from him. I think that did take. But, you know, I think the Governor went in first, and failed. But it takes--you know, with Sununu, it would take several attempts at almost anything.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: I interviewed Bobby Valentine, now a New York Mets manager, who was also fired by George W., and he came outta that meeting loving George W., because he'd gotten an hour-long "love bomb" but he at least did realize he'd been fired.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: Do you have any idea why the message didn't take? What is your sense of what happened in that meeting?

Mr. Gray?

MR. GRAY: You know, I really don't know, E.J. I just don't know. I will say this. That this was a very tragic period for John Sununu, and he was under enormous pressure. A lot of it was generated by himself. I remember--there are a lot of stories about this that are funny and tragic, and semi-tragic, and tragicomic, and whatnot, and I could regale you with them, and it might be more elucidating about Sununu's character than Governor Bush's character, though, so I'll abstain. I'll exercise some marked discipline here and not go into it. But I think he was--you know, for example, when he went to the stamp auction, I begged him to take the train.

I got on my hands and knees, literally begged him, and he wouldn't do it. He was under enormous pressure, some of it was of his own doing, some of it was people targeting him from outside. They wanted to make sure he wasn't going to run the campaign. I won't mention who those people are, but you can probably figure it out, and he was being fried. His mind, his brain was fried. He was totally, totally dysfunctional, and I don't think he was listening, I don't think he was capable of rational thought.

I've never seen anyone under so much pressure. Some of you may have. It was really, really tragic.

MR. DIONNE: Thank you.

MR. : E.J. [inaudible].

MR. DIONNE: Please.

MR. : I have a question for the panel in terms of how resistant Washington, particularly the Hill, might be to [inaudible] trying to work across the aisle. Some of the comments [inaudible] to '93 when Clinton came in, and also said, you know, Washington is Little Rock writ large, and I think we're getting here Washington is Austin writ large, and then you have a great disappointment.

Specifically, what I'd like some of the panelists to focus on is to what extent Clinton misperceived Washington and to what extent Bush may, and with regard to W., how he may be misperceiving the Democrats, in the sense that the boll weevils are no longer available as a separate [inaudible] because of [inaudible] Gephardt, and Bill Clinton. Also, what do you think about how he may be misperceiving his own Republicans on the Hill. Right now everything's hunky-dory, but I think to get some political message from both sides, that W. believes he's got the Republican legislators on the Hill in his pocket, once he becomes President, and they think they've got him in their pocket, and the agendas may not coincide. So I'd like to hear some comments and reactions.

MR. DIONNE: Fred.

MR. GREENSTEIN: Well, two former governors who seem, to me, to have misperceived Washington and done an analogy, and--but these are small state governors. Jimmy Carter. Actually, "Tip" O'Neill reached his hands out to Carter and he said, "Look, you know, it's wonderful to have a Democrat and I would love to help you," and Carter literally said to O'Neill, "I don't need your help because I'll do what I did in Georgia. I'll go over the heads of the legislature." In general, there was just a lot of hubris and inappropriate behavior, not to speak of the fact that they didn't even give O'Neill's party favorable seats at the inauguration.

There was some of the same kind of hubris, whether or not it was a direct attempt to extrapolate Arkansas to Washington--it probably wasn't with somebody as politically supple and sophisticated as Bill Clinton, but there were stories out of that chaotically organized transition team which presaged the chaotically organized Clinton White House about, you know, people saying, you know, "We'll roll Moynihan" and there was a failure on the part of Clinton to bond and connect with Sam Nunn, and that of course, you know, before he even took office, you had the gays in the military thing.

My impression, from the outside, of George W. Bush, is that he is more of a--he's issue-oriented in the sense that he knows you need issues, and he's prepared to identify them and go after them, but he also is a--you know--a pragmatic politician who looks at the situation that he's about to face, and asks how can you then put the pieces together.

Also the impression that at some level his ego is not as deeply invested in the whole business of politics as that of, say, a Bill Clinton, whose entire life has been politics, so that he's got more of--so there's just more potential give to him.

MR. BROOKS: Governor, I wonder if I could just follow up on the Republican side of that question. There have been signs of impatience in the Bush campaign with some of the Hill Republicans, especially early in the primary season, and there was a sense that among the Republican governors, there was broad impatience with some of the Hill Republicans. Was that something you saw on the part of the governors, in general, and on the part of Governor Bush, in particular?

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: No. I have sensed, from the beginning, that governors have been very united behind Governor Bush. Now I would tell you that--

MR. BROOKS: What about Newt Gingrich, though?

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: Yeah. There's some built-in impatience, always, with governors, Republican, or otherwise, in the House, in the Senate, and the White House. I think that's just a part of the process. We believe in states' rights. We want less Federal Government interference, and those on the Washington scene have a very different view about that. But I think it more relates to that than partisan sort of approaches.

My sense of the governors is that the unity amongst Republican governors behind Governor Bush has been very, very solid. Some consternation during the primary season about how this was turning out. When McCain was making a real run at this, I think all of our stomachs were fluttering a little bit, but I think, generally, there's just been great support for this governor.

MR. DIONNE: I'm glad you--as Richard Nixon used to say--I'm glad you raise that question. I'm glad you raised that point. There were a lot of reports when McCain was riding very high, of Republicans being prepared to jump off the Bush ship, and what I'd like to know is what did Bush and his campaign do to prevent a collapse, which may not have been as close as one sensed at the time, but there were clearly indications of a danger to Bush, that people would throw in the towel and say, "This guy can't make it. Look at what--you know--look at New Hampshire and what happened afterward."

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: What Governor Bush did and what his staff did, and what they do so effectively, is they got right in the middle of it. I remember a conference call with Republican governors, where we had the Bush campaign on the other end of the line, and this was, I think, in the New Hampshire/Michigan time frame, and they just started getting information out as to what the next primaries were, what they were seeing out there, and I guarantee you--every governor walked out of that room believing that this was a win, that we were "on the right train" here, if you will, and that they had this well in hand.

I didn't pick up any dissension after that telephone conversation. I think that's one of the things they do very, very effectively. I see it at this convention. You know, they just understand that a piece of what they do is offer some tender loving care in terms of who your supporters are, and they do it very, very well.

MR. : E.J., could you give us a list of those who were about to bail?

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: They were all off the record.

MR. McNEELY: One of the things that the Governor has alluded to here is that Bush knows how, and has known how, it's part of his success, relative success as governor, knows how to use the celebrity of being both, not just the governor, but a former first son of a President of the United States, and he knows that people like to be around that. The air of inevitability that the Bush camp were able to create by having this Chinese water torture, of state representatives from Montana, and North Carolina, and everywhere else--a majority of the members, Republicans in Congress, all endorsing Bush kind a prior to the primaries, and so they had a vested interest in his success.

It'd be kind a hard to bail, and because as Senator Bivins says, give us a list of those who were thinking about it.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: We're talking about Bush. How much--this is, I guess, for Dave and Dan. How much--when we talk about Bush as Bush, and how much is Karl Rove, and the Iron Triangle, the leadership, I--maybe we'll start with Dave. I gather you taught a course with Karl Rove.

MR. McNEELY: Yeah. I taught for a couple semesters with Karl Rove after Paul Begala and I taught it, initially, for a couple semesters.

MR. : Who's better?

[Laughter.]

MR. : McNeely!

MR. McNEELY: They are both incredibly bright guys from whom electricity seems to just sort of exude, and I just kind a stood back and tried to live in their reflected glow. The governor is going to be more of--and I don't want this to sound demeaning--but more of kind of an "in-box President," if he becomes that. He's going to deal mostly with issues that come to him.

He will have a few priorities and will deal with those, and, otherwise, he'll deal with things as they arise. He is a less government kind a guy, and he wants to deemphasize some of the things that government is now doing, turning a lot of social programs over to the faith sector, and so on.

He also--it's been referred to here as "incredible discipline," and I think that's correct. Some people have sort of spoken with some criticism of the fact that, you know, he takes time off during the day to go for a run. The job of governor, just as is the job of President, particularly the job of President, is open-ended. You can do as much of it as you want to. He has martialed his resources and kept his eye on a few things that he wanted to do, and otherwise leaves almost all the details to his staff.

MR. : Dan?

MR. BALZ: It's a very good question and I'll tell you what people have told me as opposed to what I know, because I don't think I know the answer to this question.

I think the senior staff around Bush is as seamless as a senior staff relationship with a principle as I can recall. Perhaps you could go back to the Carter years, with the tight group of Georgians around him, but I don't have any first-hand knowledge of that 'cause I did not cover that White House in any way.

Karl is a very smart political strategist who, you know, has been at the forefront of moving Texas from a one-party state to a two-party state, and some would say to a Republican state.

MR. : A one-party state.

[Laughter.]

MR. : Texas is always a one-party state of one kind or another.

MR. BALZ: And understands political strategy, dynamics, demographics, polling--the whole thing--extraordinarily well. Karen Hughes is as close as I've seen to an alter ego to a candidate in a presidential campaign, that I can recall. I think that Karen Hughes, the communications director, and Governor Bush, by now, think very much alike, and can probably complete one another's sentences, and, in many ways, have similar judgments about political decisions.

Joe Allbaugh is a very solid manager who Bush clearly trusts to keep the trains running.

On the other hand, I have talked to people about this question that David raised. How much of is it Karl or Karen? How much of it is Governor Bush? Both a Republican operative who knows Bush very well, and a governor who knows Bush very well, have both said to me that Bush is his own strategist, in many ways. That Bush has very solid political instincts of his own. It's not that they contradict the staff's.

But both of these people said to me, really, in the last month or two, that you should not underestimate the degree to which Bush is at the center of the political decision making and thinking about how the campaign's going forward, so--

MR. : Boyden?

MR. GRAY: I want to just add a point here. The two reporters do know, and Senator Bivins knows better than I, but I will say this. That I think the real example, and the lesson of the Sununu thing is that he learned a lot from watching things crater, at times, in the Reagan and Bush White Houses, and that often happened as a result of disloyalty or people with their own agendas and infighting. That's a very, very serious problem that any President has, and I think Governor Bush is determined, absolutely determined to learn from those mistakes, and not permit anything like that to remotely happen on his watch. I think that will stand him in very good stead.

That team he's got--I know 'em fairly well, not anywhere near as well as some of the reporters here, and not as well as you do--but they are intensely loyal to themselves and to him, and to the program, and this is half the battle.

SENATOR BIVINS: Could I go back to the question about "Austin writ large"? I like the way he said that. There's no question in my mind, that nobody knows whether this is going to be successful. Many have come to Washington in the past and tried to transfer this. But I think that there's some opportunities and I've really not even mentioned this to the Governor, but I think it's obvious.

The one place to do this on an issue basis is Social Security. I mean, if you look at the Bush proposal on Social Security and you look at Moynihan and Kerry and other Democrats, they're traveling along parallel rails to the third rail, I guess. I don't know--somebody asked whether there could be a Democrat that could arise, like Bob Bullock, which, in many ways, was sort of a mentor for Bush--it wouldn't be the same. But my sense is, is that there are some people in the Senate, especially, that have a mind set that we need to do what's best for the country, and even saw Vice President Gore, who, first of all, deemed personal management of retirement accounts as risky, now coming with his own plan.

My sense is is that on issue by issues, we might--or Governor Bush might be able to lower the partisan rancor. Now that may be a naive hope but I wanted to address that.

MR. BROOKS: Senator, could I just ask you one more management question, which is about these three who are so senior to the campaign. Were they also senior to the governing? Is there a barrier in George Bush's mind between governing and campaigning?

SENATOR BIVINS: I don't think so, and I think the selection of Dick Cheney is probably the best example of that. I think he chose Dick Cheney because he felt like, first and foremost, he could be a very good President of the United States, and certainly Joe and Karen and Karl were involved from the beginning in the campaign. They transferred to the Governor's staff and were involved in there.

They have a senior staff that is composed of, what? 12 people, something like that. They have regular meetings, and these meetings are a lot of fun. I've gotten to sit in a few of them, and Bush is always pushing people, questioning ideas, and as you said, Dan, kind of coming up with his own strategy a lot of the time.

So I don't think that he sees them differently. I think he sees this as a continuum.

MR. DIONNE: Could somebody--I mean, that's a very interesting point, and there's a downside to this point, I mean, in that it was talked about in the Cheney selection, that the insistence on so much loyalty to avoid the problems that Mr. Gray suggested happened in the Bush White House, also creates a kind of closed circle.

You put a guy in charge of picking the Vice President. Lo and behold, he ends up being the guy who becomes Vice President.

Could somebody talk about sort of the up and the down side of this insistence on loyalty. The potential up and down side.

MR. McNEELY: Well, it filters the material that's going to reach him, to an extent, and I think you run that danger, that there is so much loyalty and they think so well, all of each other, that sometimes they make keep some bad news from reaching him, and I think that could be--

MR. : Has that happened? Do you know of instances of that in his period as governor, that you can think of?

MR. McNEELY: Well, his agenda has not been that ambitious in terms of stuff that the legislature wasn't already conditioned to do, and so, for that reason, you know, it kind a hasn't come up. Other than the tax deal, there was no really great bold initiative that was just emanating from Governor Bush, so I don't think that's really been tested.

MR. : I don't think that's true. I just don't. I mean, some of the education stuff I know had been bouncing around.

SENATOR BIVINS: I know I've harped on this, but I go back to social promotion. I mean, accountability, and a lotta things like this, that we're doing in Texas, testing, are things that many other states are doing, but this social promotion issue came out of the governor's head, after he saw the numbers, and he had a number of people--who I will not mention--tell him, "Don't go there, this is more high-stakes testing, we hate this." Actually, some Republican House members, in the beginning, because they wanted to do away with the TAS [ph] test altogether.

So I think that there are people in the inner circle that have gone to him and said, "Don't do this," and he says no.

The other thing I would tell you is not just inner circle, but the kind a guy he is, he has some very close friends, and I know of one example, in particular, where one of those close friends was particularly interested in a position, and he said, "You're not right for it." It was a strong disappointment to that person. But I think there's a backbone element here that we can't ignore.

MR. BALZ: I'd like to dissent, briefly, with what Senator Bivins just said, not in the sense that social promotion was not a big issue. But I think that one of the problems that Governor Bush faces is that what he did in Texas was he had a clear agenda for the first term, and he got most of that through, but, as Dave indicates, some of that was not as controversial, and it was not as difficult to get through.

What he has done in this campaign is put out a very big agenda of things that are pretty controversial.

Dave Broder, my colleague, was, as always, the first to sort of get to this point, and that is, at some point Bush may have bitten off more than he could chew, either in terms of selling this in the campaign, and, if not that, trying to get it all done, and figuring out what his real priorities are in the first year of a presidency.

Obviously, the first year is crucial because it is when you have the most capital, and you can do the most things. But if you think of Social Security reform, some kind of Medicare reform, a very big and controversial tax cut, national missile defense of a kind that is alarming to our allies and much bigger and technologically unproven than a lotta people thought, as well as a school program that includes a voucher plan, that is a very tough agenda to try to put through in a whole four-year term.

What Senator Bivins is talking about was done over a 5-year period, and probably less controversial, and in an environment that may have been more hospitable to him.

So that I think there is a lot of work ahead for him, if he becomes President.

MR. : Thank you. That gentleman. Sir. Yes?

MR. : A question, actually, for Professor Greenstein. Apropos Mr. Balz's last remarks, there haven't been many times where we've heard Governor Bush speak extemporaneously on some of these issues, at least pressed very hard. During one of the debates in California, if I recall, he was asked about trigger locks, and he seemed truly mystified. Remember, he said, "How would you enforce that?" It seemed like a foreign concept, as if, you know, seat belt laws or mandatory brakes on cars. But seemingly just something that he couldn't quite get his mind around.

I'm wondering if there's been any--whether there is sort of a "Chauncey Gardener element" here, and if there's any way to sort of get some insight, other than through presumably friendly governors or staff. Governor Bush has been commended for having a pretty tight rein on that crowd [ph].

MR. GREENSTEIN: Well, the Chauncey Gardener image of course is that from Jerzy Kosinski's--or Peter Sellers "Being There", and this is someone who is a true "empty suit," but people project on him, and that was used widely on Reagan, and I think there is a parallel in that Reagan certainly was at his weakest when it came to extemporaneous demonstrations of substance, where he not only lacked an ability to really reveal lots of substance, but he had, you know, strange ideas about trees causing pollution, and so on.

[Simultaneous conversation.]

MR. : Personal judgment.

MR. : Okay. Personal--

MR. : Fred, trees do pollute.

[Laughter.]

MR. GRAY: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. They do pollute, and that's why Atlanta's got such a terrible problem, and because the pine trees do exude these VOCs. That's why the Blue Ridge are called the Blue Ridge, because, you know, this haze comes up. Trees do pollute.

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: Polluting trees may be the third rail.

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: The true third rail. What I want to say about Reagan is that, eventually, people gave up on playing "Gotcha," about getting information out of him, because it wasn't really playing, politically. Now the great exception was the Iran-contra period, where he was really enormously vulnerable as a result of both relying so heavily on advisers, and I think, you know, a certain deficiency in terms of being able to handle specifics.

Some of the things that I haven't heard enough, from my outside perspective about this guy, is--although it's been coming up again and again in the panel--is what he's learned by virtue of observing or being kind of a shadow figure in relation to his father's governing experience, and it seems very clear, from things that have come out, for instance in the January session of this panel, that it isn't just that he's soaked up experience from his father's--from what may or may not be the Bush I presidency, but that he's come up with explicit adages, such as you need a focus, you need a finite set of issues.

Otherwise, the other guys are going to run your presidency. Then something that I found fascinating in the transcript of the January session, which hasn't quite come up yet, is apparently in '97, he was advised strongly against this visionary, or complex tax program, and not only did he go ahead with it, but he said, you know, I've got this political capital and I'm going to use it, and that, to some extent, you know, may have been a tactical response to watching his father's failure after Desert Storm, to then take hold and do something with his popularity. Or it may just suggest something more basic about the man and his leadership style.

I don't know enough from the outside. I have a sense that, you know, that he's someone who's not deeply, emotionally invested in the notion that he's going to wind up on Mount Rushmore, which undoubtedly he won't.

But, on the other hand, that he's someone who thinks that if you get into it, you want to find some things that you can do, and do them.

MR. DIONNE: First, bless Fred Greenstein for reading that transcript. Could I just--well, go ahead, Governor, 'cause I wanted to follow--

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: If I could just add one quick thought that I think is enormously important here. George W. Bush understands the power of executive leadership and the impact that it can have.

He understands it as the governor. You can have two dozen legislative studies. We have an endless parade of legislative studies. Every tough issue that you can't find consensus on, they throw in a legislative study. Every state is the same. George W. Bush understands that until the governor steps up and is willing to sacrifice some political capital to make something happen, it probably is going to be very difficult to get it to happen.

That's where I see the real leadership here. That's where you're going to see, I think, a real difference. For all of the foibles of Bill Clinton, I think he understood that very well, too. I think he understood, that when he stepped up to the podium, he was the President of the United States, and that's what I see in George W. Bush. When he picked these three or four issues, and said, "I'm going to put the power of the Governor's Office, and my personal efforts behind this," that was significant. It's significant in every state and it's significant when you're President of the United States, and he has a full grasp of that.

MR. BIVINS: One other thing. Professor Greenstein, with regard to being the son of a President, I heard it said once, and I love this: "Cobblers' sons make the best shoes."

[Laughter.]

MR. : There's a slogan for the convention!

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: This lady wants to get in. I wanted to just stick with the Reagan metaphor for a sec, because I think it may be interesting in a different respect, which is in the sense of what is his political philosophy, and if you look at Bush and Cheney together, what you may have is moderate style and actually strongly conservative substance, and I'm curious, if Mr. Gray, or Dan, has a view on that, because if you look at Bush's actual positions as opposed to the way he presents them, he's--you know, Ronald Reagan wasn't able to propose partially privatizing Social Security. The tax cut is very Reaganesque in its proportions.

I wonder if both of you could address that question--moderate style, very conservative substance.

MR. BALZ: Every early conversation I had with either Governor Bush or people around him, after he got elected, where I was attempting to draw some kind of line to pull him away from conservatism, I ran into a brick wall, and I think you're absolutely right, that he has always wanted to be seen, and has carried this campaign out in a way to reinforce that. If you try to do an analogy to Clinton '92, which we have constantly done, and tried to talk about triangulation, or redoing the Democratic Party, redoing the Republican Party, there were some points at which Clinton clearly made a break with the old Democratic Party, and there's been almost no case of that for Governor Bush. There've been a few mild cases, where he seemed to take issue with the congressional Republicans, but really backpedaled, pretty quickly, when it was thrown back in his face. So that I think that's important.

I'll tell you a story about Dick Cheney, which reinforces the same thing. Back in 1985, there was a big fight in the House over a disputed election in the State of Indiana, and I won't go into the details, but it bitterly divided the House, and the Republicans were furious at the way the Democrats had treated them, and eventually staged a walkout over the way that the election was finally ruled.

I wrote a piece about what was going on within the Republican Caucus at the time, and it was when Newt Gingrich was on the rise, but still had not been in the leadership, and Gingrich and his forces were advocating some pretty dramatic things, including, apparently, some civil disobedience to dramatize what they wanted to do, and Cheney was part of the Old Guard, who was not, but he was already very angry.

I remember doing an interview with him, and in the piece, I described him in the context of this kind of internal division as "a moderate's moderate," and the piece ran on a Sunday or a Monday or something, and the phone rang the next day, and it was Dick Cheney, who I did not know particularly well, and he said, "You described me in your article--he said, "I want to take issue with something. You described me in your article as a moderate's moderate." I said, "Well, I did."

He said, "I am a conservative." I said, "Well, I really meant it in the context of your style." He said, "I am a conservative and I hope you'll remember that."

MR. BROOKS: If I could follow up and press you on that--that's "fightin' talk" in Washington.

[Laughter.]

MR. BROOKS: What kind of conservative? There are now 9 million different kinds, and the Gingrich kind was, at least in '94, a more libertarian kind, cutting government agencies, and on that stuff, the Bush campaign does seem to have shifted the Republican Party. Is it a libertarian conservatism, or is it a culture war, we don't like the sixties, conservatism? Or what's the driving impulse behind it?

MR. BALZ: I think it is a small government conservatism. That it is probably more economic conservatism, in that regard, than social conservatism, though, clearly, he has not moved really an iota away from the basic positions on that. I think one of the things about Bush is that he is hard to put in a box in terms of the kinds of debates that have happened among conservatives, about the different slices or flavors of conservatism over the late '80s and early '90s. I don't think he particularly thinks that way. I mean, you all may have a better sense of that than I do.

But I don't think he spends a lot of time thinking about whether he's in the libertarian camp or the social--you know--this or that, or that flavor. He simply thinks of himself as a conservative with a few basic principles that he backs that up with.

MR. BROOKS: Boyden.

MR. GRAY: I think the defining thing is how big should the central government be. I mean, I think that determines how he thinks about most of these issues, and it's not very complicated, but it's pretty important, and you'll see this play out again and again and again, I think, in the course of the next three or four years.

MR. BROOKS: But he has called for more spending on education, on housing. I mean, there's some compassionate conservative, actual grant programs out there.

MR. BIVINS: You're talking about not bucking the conservative Republicans. I think, clearly, his positions on education stand in stark contrast to proposals to do away with the Department of Education, and his statement on the Earned Income Tax Credit, that he didn't want to balance the books of the country on the backs of the working man. You know, I don't see him as some kind of revolutionary zealot, but I also see him as a man of convictions, that is willing to stand up for what he believes, whether or not the Republicans or the Democrats are going to [inaudible].

MR. BROOKS: Well, that segues into--

MR. DIONNE: David, there was one lady who's been so patient here. Could--

MR. BROOKS: If we could ask you to go to the microphone, just so we can get the--and identify yourself, please.

MS. : Yes. It's Nancy Romo [ph] with the G-7 Group. I just wanted to pick up on a point that's been made a few times. The governor was saying how Bush understands executive power, and that when he goes to the podium, he can really make a difference, and Dan Balz I think correctly pointed out the ambitious agenda he's laid out in the campaign.

So if you go with Social Security reform, Medicare reform, missile defense, the tax cuts--of all of those things, where do you think he would spend his capital? Which, you know, one or two issues might he advance? Can you see him having success, in his first year, on any of those issues? Because I think a lot of us who've been watching politics for a while would be surprised, for example, if he could achieve the Social Security portion of his platform, even in the first two or three years.

MR. BROOKS: Thank you.

MR. BIVINS: I don't know which one he would pick, but I would venture to say that he will prioritize. I agree, that it's an ambitious agenda; but that's what campaigns are about. Campaigns are about ideas, and he's putting all those ideas out there. Governing--and this is the Transition To Governing--is trying to put those ideas into action, and above all else, he is a guy who does first things first, and I'm not sure which one he'd rank at the top, but I'd suggest to you that he would prioritize.

MR. GRAY: One thing I think is important to remember is that he understands, and I think learned this again in the Reagan-Bush years, that elections themselves are agenda-setters, and we're not through this yet. I mean, obviously, we're not through it. But what happens with the various issues and how much buy-in--I think on Social Security, for example, that oddly enough--and this has been pointed out by the National Review--that Gore's proposal isn't that far, and then you've got the Moynihan stuff. I think there's almost a growing political consensus that there is to be some privatization in Social Security. The question is just how you do it.

I think you'll find, by the end of this campaign, there there will be a consensus to do something about a drug benefit. Now the big question, whether it's going to be an extension of HCFA and Medicare, or some private sector thing. But I think the campaign is going to determine a lotta the agenda and we haven't gotten through it yet.

MR. McNEELY: One of the things that I saw, and I made the, what I later came to regard as a mistake, of calling Bush, when he was running in '94, "Bush Light" and he--you know--he proved that to me, in spades, after he became governor. I talked, a while ago, about members of the Supreme Court coming, seeing them coming from the mansion.

One of the other things that Bush would do is go down in the afternoons in the underground addition to the capitol, where a lot of the legislative offices are, and just sort of wander around down there in the afternoon and pop into offices.

By about seven to eight weeks into his first term, he had met with all but six of the 181 members of the legislature, in one on one, or very small groups, and the six that he hadn't met with was because of their schedule conflicts, not because of his.

I think that he will take, if he is elected, I think he'll take that personal diplomacy, and I realize that there are 535 members of the Congress, but I will bet you that there will be an awful lot of early meetings, getting those people up there, and trying, if not to win them over, at least to coopt them.

MR. DIONNE: David, you were going to add something.

MR. BROOKS: We were talking about the varieties of conservatism. I wanted to ask about his influential political philosopher--Jesus--whether you've seen that in his governing style, whether that shapes his priorities, and whether it truly is the shaping force between--in compassionate conservatism. It's not the way a lot of people talk in Washington, and I'm just wondering, from the people in Austin, whether it's a real active part of his mind.

SENATOR BIVINS: I think Governor Engler's answer to that question in your January panel was an excellent answer. I'll tell you that George W. Bush is one of the most principled people I've ever met, and I think he was very serious about Jesus being the most influential political philosopher, and ideas like no child being left behind. You know, first things first.

I think it's a very moral philosophy. I don't think that answer was intended to solicit the religious right or anything. I think that is the way the guy is. He does read the Bible every day. He reads a study Bible, I've got a copy of it, and it's burdensome. It takes me about an hour to get through what you're supposed to read every day, so I don't do it. But he is what--I think it's genuine.

MR. DIONNE: Tom, did you have a question? Oh, I thought--okay.

I want to just, on the tax cut, before we leave that and the link between smaller government, on the other hand, and compassionate conservatism on the other, can anybody enlighten us on how he came to that tax cut? Again, it's one of those choices where it didn't have to be that big, it didn't have to be shaped the way it was, but it's a very strong, important commitment that he's made.

Governor, you wanted to get into that.

GOVERNOR JOHANNS: Well, I'd just offer a thought, that I think it's very genuine when he says that this money is really the people's. We have a good economy. We have been the beneficiary of extra dollars throughout our states, and, now, in our Federal Government. What a wonderful time for the citizens of the United States, and I think George W. Bush looks at this and says, genuinely, hey, this is the money that we remove from the people's pockets. Aren't they better equipped to decide how they will invest that money in their own family, in their own community, in their own churches, in their own schools?

So it wasn't terribly surprising to me that a piece of his package of ideas, if you will, was going to be some kind of tax cut. Now I would offer this. I do think he's going to have some success here.

You know, I do think that he will earmark some areas where he wants to make a difference in terms of helping married couples, maybe it's the marriage penalty--whatever it is--but I think he's going to have a very, very focused effort here to try to return some of those dollars to the people, and he feels, very strongly, that it's people's money. It's not government's money. We removed it from somebody. So I do think you'll see a tax cut feature coming right out of the box.

MR. BROOKS: Boyden Gray, in 1990, when his father did the budget deal, do you remember George W. voicing any opinion about that, or playing any role?

MR. GRAY: No. I don't. I was, myself, pretty well cut out of the whole process, and so I really don't know what happened. I think that's one of the most interesting periods of recent history. I understand the role Gingrich played in torpedoing all of it. But I don't think that Governor Bush was deeply involved.

MR. BALZ: E.J., on the tax plan, my sense is that this was a collision between the Governor's views on how to manage the economy and the compassionate conservatism, kind of social welfare part of his campaign, because he, essentially, I think, set out two clear priorities which, when you brought them together, gave him the tax cut that became much, much larger than I think they probably, politically, needed, I mean, and probably hurt him.

One was rate cuts. His view is that you need to cut rates to stimulate the economy, and he wanted even deeper rate cuts than they were able to end up with.

But the other thing he wanted was a lot aimed at people on the low end of the scale, even though most of those benefits accrue to people who are higher income. By including those provisions, it enlarged the cost of the entire program, and I think a lot of people were surprised that after the Republicans lost the fight, a year ago, on the size of it--was it a $800 billion tax cut?--that Bush would come out with one that was even larger, and I think that that was a result of him insisting that both things be done, and he said, at the time, that he wanted to cut the top rate actually to 30 percent, and that that would have--there simply was no money to do that, even with the big surpluses.

MR. McNEELY: Let me talk briefly about the '97 tax cut. I went back and looked at the press release in which that was announced, that surprised the legislative leadership, one of the few times that Governor Bush did that, and it was calling for, as I--I can't remember whether it was one billion or two billion, but it was a round number--tax cut, and that came out eight days after the 1996 general election.

I had the sense then, and later felt that it was still true, that that was sort of a cruise missile aimed at New Hampshire and Iowa four years later--or three years later, because I do think that the governing and the politics do overlap with Governor Bush.

MR. : The cruise missile exploded in New Hampshire, somehow, in 2000.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: Could I read something that a distinguished professor of politics wrote in the New Republic in May, and it's an analysis of both Bush and Gore. We can leave Gore to another day, and indeed will have a panel about Gore at the Democratic Convention.

"What about George W. Bush and Al Gore? Neither is rhetorically gifted and each probably has the skill and flexibility to be reasonably effective in Washington and abroad. As a governor, Bush has more organizational experience. Gore has revealed more of a policy vision, although it is not clear whether there is a larger architecture to his policies."

"Neither was a top student, but Gore comes across as sharper. Finally, neither looks like an emotional time bomb, but Bush has shown a worrisome querulousness and irritability. Of course it is early for such judgments, but here's a preliminary assessment. Both would make decent Presidents, suitable for relatively painless times, but not great ones who could provide creative leadership during a real crisis."

That was Fred Greenstein. I'm curious if somebody else on the panel wants to agree, in part, or dissent, in part, with--putting aside any comments on his assessment of Al Gore--just his take on Bush?

SENATOR BIVINS: Fortunately, Texas has not had a crisis under Governor Bush. Frankly, I looked at the AEI's poll here, and one of the very stimulating questions was, "Who would you rather be in a foxhole with?" Let's see. Yeah. "Who would you rather be in a foxhole with during combat?" 39 percent, Al Gore. 46 percent, George Bush. I agree. I think that if we are faced with a crisis, I'd rather have him at the helm.

MR. DIONNE: Anyone else have a view on that? Querulousness, which--again, we've talked to much about likability. There's also a reputation that this is a very tough operation when it wants to go out after someone, which is why I could not mention any of those people who are thinking of shifting to McCain at this stage of the game.

[Laughter.]

MR. DIONNE: Anybody with a take on that?

MR. McNEELY: There was one time when Texas was about to execute a Canadian who had been found guilty of committing a murder in Texas, and there were a bunch of Canadian journalists down there at this press conference, the week before that was to happen. They asked Governor Bush, they said, "What is this down here? Just the Wild West with everyone having a six-gun?" He said, "Let me tell you, folks, that we want you to visit our country and want you to visit our state." He said, "But if you're from Canada, while you're in Texas, don't kill anyone."

They saw kind of the hair on the back of his neck stand up a little bit on that one, and I'd be interested to see what would happen with a President Bush, if "push did come to shove."

MR. BIVINS: Could I just say one thing on querulousness? That, you know, he's gotten this "rap" that he lost his temper, badly, when his dad was running for President and that's, hence, the querulousness issue.

First of all, during his six years as Governor, I've certainly not seen it in a policy realm, and, secondly, what's wrong with a guy who's got a temper? I mean, Lyndon Johnson had a hell of a temper. I mean, Sam Rayburn had a temper. I mean, there are a lot of great leaders that had a temper. It's a question of how they used it, and, certainly, in his public life as Governor, it has never been an issue.

MR. GRAY: Let me--I mean, Clinton has an explosive temper, if you read the books. I don't think that's--he's got his mother's wit, which may get him in trouble from time to time.

I want to make another point, which I'm no sure is really responsive to the thing you read, but the thing that strikes me, is really unique about Governor Bush, is he has an uncanny sense about people, about picking good people, and I'm not sure it's true about Gore.

I mean, you're going to get into Gore. But they've got a staff turnover, with Gore, is unbelievable. But there's a certain stability and predictability. These people around Governor Bush are very solid people, and I think he's got a very good sense for picking people to carry out things he wants to do.

MR. GREENSTEIN: On that, I wonder if I could swing back to the Cheney thing--

MR. DIONNE: Do you want to dissent from the thing I just read?

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: I don't know what to make of him--

MR. DIONNE: Go ahead. I'm sorry.

MR. GREENSTEIN: --at the emotional level. It's clear that that's not been an issue in recent years. This also is a person who gave up drinking, you know, and did it in a very sort of sharp and forced way, in 1986, which, in my world, is not very far back. It may be, for my students who weren't born. So, you know, what the whole human package is, I think, in part, the campaign will reveal. At the end of the California gubernatorial campaign in 1962, Richard Nixon came, you know, close to a sort of institutionalizeable meltdown, when he talked about "getting the shaft," and so on. So it remains to be seen. He's also got to deal with one of the most powerful and effective debaters in American history. You know, Gore wakes up from his kind of dreamy, monotonous style when he's in an exchange with a Perot or a Bradley. So we'll then see how George W. responds to that. Can he be sort of resilient, the way Ronald Reagan was when he had to deal with Mondale or Jimmy Carter, and, you know, really handle it through personal skills and rhetorical skills.

There's just a lot to be seen and I guess this is the upside of the fact that we're having an unbelievably long presidential campaign which began in the first week of March and which the American people still haven't really tuned in on.

What I was going to do is pick up on--it seems to me that there's something illuminating about the Cheney choice, and I take this for the fact that I've had a whole series of contacts with Dick Cheney. I wouldn't call him a friend, but I interviewed him when he was Rumsfeld's deputy in the Ford White House, and knew of him, at that point, as a promising political scientist who had published in the American Political Science Review, a very high profile--

[Laughter.]

MR. : The Gore campaign has put that out on a negative sheet--

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: I'm sure the Drudge Report will be doing something with it as well.

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: But I had him to Princeton a couple of times for conferences, and he was always prepared, say, to do a keynote in a conference, and do it well, without notes, the great student of how congressmen relate to their constituents. Dick Fenno [ph] and I had sat with Cheney when he was congressman from Wyoming at one of these Miller Center events, and Cheney told us, in marvelous analytic detail, how you handle the job of being the one representative in a big spread-out state where, in a sense, you're sort of parallel to the two senators in that state.

There really are two Dick Cheney's, and that's what I think, you know, led to the sort of two-phase response to his nomination. When he was first named, the big word was what a wonderful choice, how much stature it reveals on the part of George W. Bush. The second one was, you know, look at that voting record, and, yeah, he voted against Nelson Mandela, and so on.

Well, there's the Dick Cheney who is, I think, you know, very smart, very wry, unself-important, someone who just comes across as, you know, as an attractive, congenial, flexible human being who can see connections and make connections.

Then there's the ideological conservative Dick Cheney who voted way out on his--in his party, and political scientists I know have often been startled to see Dick Cheney's voting record. It doesn't seem to relate to the Dick Cheney that they like so much. Of course he was also, you know--

MR. : It says a lot about political scientists.

MR. GREENSTEIN: Although it was Dave Broder, one of the--

[Laughter.]

MR. GREENSTEIN: But I think there's something here about George W. as well. There's a kind of a--less conceptually, perhaps, but there's a fundamental conservatism, which is a strong conservatism, and I think also is a life style conservatism. He did not relate well to the--he was on the other side of Bill Clinton on the lifestyle aspects of the '60s, and they're of the same generation. But there is a pragmatic political operator, an attractive human being, and that side, I think, makes him a potent political force.

MR. DIONNE: There's a question I wanted to put to Dan, that's raised by that, and you've heard a lot of speculation, the last several days, that because Cheney was in the middle of the process and running it, the Bush campaign may not have vetted his record the way that everybody else was vetted, and that they seemed genuinely taken aback, at least on the first day, when all of these things out of the voting record came out.

Do you have any enlightenment for us as to your sense of whether Cheney kind of went below the screen a little bit, not out of malice on his part, but just because he was there, and, therefore, they may not have sort of paid attention to all these things.

MR. BALZ: I don't have a good answer and we've certainly been trying to find it out. Obviously, he went through a different vetting process than everybody else because he was kind of outside the box, and he could not be in charge of his own vetting. Presumably, they went through that voting record, and if you did, those votes would have jumped out at you and you would think that a campaign that is as good as it is in terms of preparation, and, in particular, response, would have had a better set of answers for some of those votes on the first day, or day and a half, than they did. So the question is were they caught unawares, or did they simply conclude that those were not votes that they could easily defend, and it might be better to plead a little ignorance on Cheney's part and hope that it would wash away with the Cheney demeanor, which they obviously have a lot of confidence will wear well, over time.

But I have to believe that, to some extent, the vetting was not as crisp and that they were not as well-prepared for that, but I don't know if that's the case.

MR. DIONNE: Or did they look at the votes and they didn't think they would create the response that they got.

MR. BALZ: Well, I think they assumed, that, in the end, Vice Presidents don't make that much difference in elections, and that an initial reaction would, at worst, be balanced, because you would get people who would say he has a very conservative voting record that could alarm people who don't know him very well. But, on the other hand, he has a reputation and a stature because of what he did in the Gulf War, and that sort of thing.

So I think their sense was, at worst, that they would be able to weather any early problems and that the longer it goes on, the less important it will be. But I don't think they were prepared in the way they should be.

MR. DIONNE: Dave.

MR. McNEELY: I think that he represented a two-fer for 'em, that, on the one hand, he was completely safe with regard to the conservative Republican base, he was not going to offend anybody over there, they would accept him much as Jack Kemp's choice, Bob Dole, helped to quiet any concern about that, and at the same time I think that they thought--I think as Dan was saying, that the fact of his stature from his service in previous presidential administrations, and then including, especially, President Bush's, had made him kind of a safe commodity and one that would send a reassuring note to the powers in Washington that here's at least somebody who understands how this works.

MR. GREENSTEIN: On not looking at the votes, if that's the case, the sort of standard downside, very congenial, smooth-running leadership groups, is that there's no one there to ask the hard questions. The "buzz term," going back to the social psychologist, Irving Janis's [ph] group-think, the groups become so harmonious that they tend to develop kind of almost subliminal consensus, and sometimes chaotic groups have, you know, have advantages. I think, on the one hand, if you compare the Gore and the Bush campaigns, you get a sense of there must be a much more satisfactory Bush management style. It's been a very smooth-running campaign. But it isn't clear to me whether it has the built-in warnings and the capacity to ask hard questions that you often want.

MR. GRAY: Could I just say that if--one of the great things about the Cheney pick is he has a constituency of his own. He has people that have been loyal to him for a long, long time, going back to his House days, and I think the entry of him into the inner circle provides a very, very valuable check against the, you know, the triumvirate, the staff getting too closed. I think Cheney will make sure it never shuts down.

MR. : Dan, do you want to say something before we close?

MR. BALZ: Well, that's a very good point. That's probably right. I think in this case, they were a little bit handicapped because the senior staff probably knew it was going to be Cheney, for some time, but they were under such strict orders by Bush to give no hint, and had to kind of maintain the pretense that this was totally a decision that he was still mulling, you know, even Monday, after we were all reporting that it was Cheney. That they may not have been able to kind of launch the full operation that you would normally do in a campaign to be ready, coming right out of the box with it, and so they may have kind of muted their own normal instincts of how to get prepared because they had to maintain the pretense that this wasn't a decision and they couldn't kind a set the whole campaign moving to try to, you know, vet the record themselves and have the answers, and get to the bottom of it, and ask Cheney all the questions about why this vote and why that vote.

MR. : Thank you.

Norm.

MR. ORNSTEIN: Thank you all very much. You know, this is the third session that we've done on George Bush's governing style. You go into each of them wondering if we can learn more, and I think we are learning an enormous amount more, each time. There's still a lot to learn, as there is about any candidate moving into a position that is a unique one, that of the presidency.

I want to make a couple of observations in the form of additional questions, that I hope, in the future, we can also address more, because there are some very real and interesting questions that we've raised here today, some explicitly, some implicitly.

Is there a Bob Bullock in D.C.? Is there a senior figure, presumably in the other party, or preferably in the other party, with whom George W. Bush, if he became President, could bond, and who would help him through the process, as you might say Dan Rostenkowski provided for his father, a bond that developed when they served on the Ways and Means Committee together, and Rostenkowski, incidentally, provided that same relationship for Bill Clinton at the beginning of his presidency, that ended at a rather critical point, actually, for the Clinton presidency.

That raises the larger question, Are there any Rostenkowski's left? Rostenkowski's in the sense of people who have an inherent understanding of how you can build coalitions and make things happen, but who also carry clout with their colleagues, and there's not an easy answer to that question but the preliminary answer would probably be "not really."

The next question is, if there are any, would there be any on the Democratic side who would have an interest in creating that relationship with Governor Bush? and there, too, you have to be a little bit skeptical.

The question of the likability factor and what difference that makes is another one to be raised.

In previous sessions, we've used some analogies. Likability may work with Texas Democrats in a way that it might not with a David Bonior, for example, who may not be impressed by a warm personality, and even a personal charisma.

The priorities in the first hundred days. At the previous session we did on George W. Bush and foreign policy, one of our panelists, as we had a lengthy discussion of missile defense, raised, eloquently, the point, that you could probably get the kind of missile defense system that Governor Bush has proposed, but to do so, you would have to make it the single priority of your first year, certainly of your first hundred days.

You would have to work at it night and day, take an enormous amount of flak from your allies and your adversaries, that you'd have to put other things aside.

Is it possible to do any two of these things? Then you get to the next question, where Governor Bush clearly used his capital but used it once. If you move forward on Social Security and it doesn't work the first time, does that mean you abandon it? It's interesting to look at the analogy of Bill Clinton with health care, where he moved to a different approach, it didn't work, and instead of coming back to it, he decided to move in a piecemeal fashion.

There's a kind of feedback mechanism. What kind of feedback mechanism would George W. Bush have as a President, if it didn't work in Washington or didn't work one time, the next time?

These are questions I hope we can raise in different forums and we can see raised by press coverage, and analysis. I suspect we'll see more than one story, in the next few weeks going back to the firing of John Sununu, which may be one of the most interesting chapters in recent history, and we have had of course some superb stories done by the Washington Post and the New York Times, going back and trying to draw the lessons, and it's something that we haven't seen much in campaigns before, and we have tried to encourage, enormously, and I think what you can see from these sessions is that you can raise issues, looking back at