At first glance the selection was a sign of Bush’s self-confidence. He is secure enough to surround himself with people who are brighter than he is–an essential trait in any effective leader. It also showed remarkable confidence, even cockiness, about his prospects in November that he picked someone who brings him no big state or constituency. But at another level, Bush’s pick was a tacit admission that he lacks seasoning and might not be ready to handle the responsibilities of the presidency alone.
Speculating about how a president might govern is a risky business. Ronald Reagan, anti-communist and fiscal conservative, ended up making peace with the Soviet Union and running up record deficits. But Reagan and other presidents nonetheless dropped many clues that, in retrospect, could have helped predict their performance. In his record and temperament in Texas, Bush has left us plenty to chew on, from his talent for charming legislators to the limits of his compassion for children.
Experience and Judgment: As governor, Bush keeps everything short. “He doesn’t like to read five-page memos,” says Elton Bomer, Texas’s secretary of state. “He’s more likely to ask you what it says.” Bush focuses on the big picture, makes decisions quickly based on the advice of people he trusts, then never looks back. It’s a CEO model for a man who would be the first M.B.A. president, and it has served him well so far.
But will it work in Washington? The reason the presidency is called “the glorious burden” or “the loneliest job in the world” is not just the power. The job is tough because the decisions are more excruciating than anywhere else. All of the easy choices are made at a lower level. Decisions usually reach the president only because members of the cabinet and other advisers cannot resolve their disagreements. That could affect Bush’s “team” approach to governing. Vice President Cheney will disagree with Secretary of State Powell, who will disagree with national-security adviser Rice. The president will have to make the call.
At the moment of decision, President Reagan relied on a lifetime of strong beliefs about many public issues. The first President Bush relied on extensive experience in Washington. President Clinton relied on a deep reading of history and deep knowledge of public policy. What would a new President Bush rely on? He has said he would trust his faith, his instincts and the talented people around him.
Rep. Paul Sadler, a key figure in the Texas State Legislature, is a close friend and ally of Bush’s (despite being a Democrat). But Sadler says he was disturbed to read about Cheney as “the steadying choice.” “I want the president to be the smart one, the steadying one,” he says. “Trusting someone else’s judgment is not the same as you having the judgment and historical knowledge to make the decision yourself. The result may be the same, but it’s not the same.”
Some assume that Bush got a lot of the experience he needs for the presidency by hanging around his father. They certainly talk often, especially recently. But during the Bush vice presidency and presidency, George W was in Texas, running his businesses. Aides from the Bush White House say his only specific task was to handle relations with the Christian right during the 1988 campaign. Contrary to published reports, Dubya did not fire John Sununu as White House chief of staff. And he didn’t sit in on meetings. “The thing I remember about him most was occasionally coming into my office, putting his feet up and telling a really good joke,” recalls one former senior Bush aide.
If Bush has less experience in Washington than is commonly believed, he has more in Texas. Constitutionally, the state has a weak-governor system, with few appointive or executive powers. But this has been widely misunderstood. Because the legislature meets only every other year for 140 days, the governor of Texas actually has great leeway to set an agenda and drive it home, as Bush has done. The challenge would be comparable in Washington, where the greatest real power of a president is to persuade the Congress and country to go along.
Congressional Relations: A President Bush would make it his business to charm Congress. After he was first elected governor in 1994, Bush took the time to wine and dine all 181 Texas legislators personally. He is highly likable, even to Democrats. While he doesn’t use Lyndon Johnson-style threats, Bush has his own “treatment.” Rep. Elliott Naishtat, a Democratic adversary, recalls walking down the steps of the capitol only to find himself in a playful headlock, courtesy of the governor. As they walked arm-in-skull, Bush needled–and lobbied–Naishtat.
The most famous Bush convert was the late Bob Bullock, the crusty Democratic lieutenant governor who for many years was the most powerful politician in the state. Bullock was still skeptical of the governor in 1997 and told him at a meeting: “I’m gonna f— you on that bill.” Bush, who reads people extraordinarily well, came over and planted a big kiss on Bullock and said: “If you f— me, you’re gonna kiss me first.” Bullock loved it, and became a close friend and campaign contributor to Bush. On his deathbed last year, Bullock told Bush he would make a great president.
It’s not clear that the Bullock treatment would work on, say, Dick Gephardt. Bush’s success with Congress would depend in part on which party controls it. If the Republicans do, he will move fast to enact a conservative agenda. If the Democrats take the House, Bush would likely compromise as much as necessary to move legislation, even if it didn’t fully satisfy conservatives. As long as the bills fit vaguely under his stated list of priorities–reforming Social Security, cutting taxes, giving more choice in education, building a missile defense–he wouldn’t be too fussy about the details.
Interest Level: Usually the issues that excite politicians before they run still excite them after they’re elected–and those that bore them beforehand continue to do so. This is especially likely for Bush, who has little interest in most of the mechanics of policymaking. Education is what turns him on in Texas. Although much of the dramatic rise in Texas test scores is, as Bush admits, the long-germinating result of efforts by previous governors, he gets widespread credit for keeping the momentum going with his passion and focus. But because education is essentially a state and local matter, there are limits to what he can do as president beyond using the bully pulpit.
Unlike his father, Bush does not seem to find foreign policy compelling. Last year the governor with a legendary memory for names could not remember the name of the prime minister of India, the second largest country on earth. (Imagine an applicant for CEO of a major computer company not knowing the name of the CEO of, say, Oracle.) It is hard to believe Bush would have the knowledge and patience Clinton brings to brokering peace.
Social Security and tax cuts would engage him because they are priorities, and Bush is disciplined about focusing on what helped elect him. Energy policy is not a priority, but Bush knows about it from his years as an oil executive and would get involved. Almost all other issues short of emergencies would probably get fleeting presidential attention, if that.
Fiscal Management: To be elected, Bush must prove that he is a good fiscal manager. Al Gore is using a budget shortfall in Texas to try to imply there’s a deficit. “This is total nonsense,” says Sadler. Because Texas is on a two-year budgeting cycle, it’s impossible to predict exactly where costs will balloon, as they did with Medicaid and prisons this year. But tax revenues grew faster than expected, so in the short term the state is in fine fiscal shape.
But there are questions about Bush’s long-term fiscal prudence. If state revenues were to dip (as they often do in the state’s boom-and-bust economy), Texas would have to use its rainy-day fund. But under Bush, that fund has only enough money to run the state for a single day. (They took rainy day literally.) A 1999 report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities listed Texas as one of the 11 states least prepared to weather a recession.
Priorities: Bush’s priorities aren’t too hard to figure out, starting with tax cuts. Gore says that Bush’s proposed $1.2 trillion tax cut, most of it benefiting the affluent, wouldn’t leave much room for “compassion.” That has certainly been the pattern in Texas, where $2.7 billion in tax cuts has made it tougher to meet social needs.
Take children’s health. A quarter of all children in Texas are uninsured, the second worst percentage of any state. Congress passed the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to address the problem, but the states must provide some matching money to get the federal help. Until the legislature forced him to, Bush didn’t want to match. That contributed to Texas’s leaving $450 million in federal funds on the table. So far Texas has insured only about one tenth of those eligible.
Why such a poor record for a relatively wealthy state? Because many families brought in by CHIP (aimed at the working poor) would find they were eligible for Medicaid (aimed at the deeply poor), and state authorities don’t want that program to grow. A staggering 600,000 impoverished children in Texas are eligible for Medicaid but simply aren’t signed up for the program. If they were, it would throw the budget out of whack and suggest that the tax cut may have been too big, giving ammo to the Democrats.
The same calculation went into the refusal to invest in low-income housing, which in the colonias area near the Mexican border is Third World poor. Bush’s attitude toward the Texas housing agency, beset by scandal, has been described as “blase.” “Compassion implies that you do something to help people. It doesn’t mean that you just care in your heart,” says John Henneberger, a low-income-housing activist. Choosing tax cuts over children’s health and housing: expect to see the same priorities in a Bush administration.
Vision: Bush is capable of thinking big. His ambitious plan to overhaul the entire tax and school-funding system–defeated in 1997–would have transformed Texas. In his presidential campaign he has offered a bold plan to change Social Security.
But thinking big is not always the same as thinking long term. Bush has shown no signs of pondering in any depth the far-reaching changes underway in science and technology. And his environmental record is spotty at best. By several measurements, Texas now has the worst air pollution in the nation. Bush claims to have done something about it by ending longstanding exemptions from regulation for 832 factories that account for a third of all the pollution. Instead of regulating the plants, however, he is relying on corporate volunteers, and so far only 24 have complied on their own. Efforts on auto emissions have been similarly weak.
As president, Bush would apply market mechanisms to reduce pollution. In fact, he would apply market mechanisms and business principles to anything he could. “Bidness,” to use the Texas formulation, would be No. 1 under Bush, both in the structuring of his administration and in the substance of it.
Bush is a committed Christian who laces most speeches with references to his “heart.” His stated reason for running is to restore “honor and dignity” to the office, the implicit argument being that Clinton’s departure is not itself sufficient to do so.
That sense of his own moral authority would shape the style and tone of the Bush presidency. Or would it? The inherent unpredictability of a rapidly changing world makes it impossible to know either the challenges a President Bush would face or what reservoirs of experience, knowledge and character he would draw on. All we can do is guess and hope.
