The Bush style

Delegating details to staff and seeking bipartisan support characterize Bush's leadership in Texas

By Douglas S. Wood
CNN Interactive

ATLANTA (CNN) -- Avoiding confrontation, a proclivity toward bipartisanship and a distaste for details and long meetings is likely to be the style of a George W. Bush presidency.

As Texas governor, Bush has been able to work with Democrats on his agenda by cultivating personal relationships and avoiding confrontation on issues, especially controversial ones.

Even when the two parties didn't agree, Bush managed to maintain a friendly rapport with Texas Democrats, says Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas in Austin.

"This bipartisanship is not across-the-board in terms of issues but even when Bush and his political opponents can't agree, there is a level of cordiality there that outsiders often find surprising," he says.

Bush places an emphasis on personal relationships and one of his first acts after being elected in 1994 was to meet with nearly all of the state legislators. Democratic Rep. Paul Sadler especially was important to Bush as Sadler chaired the state House Committee on education, a key campaign issue for Bush in 1994.

The two men developed a friendship and have worked together on legislation. Sadler has been complimentary of Bush in the media and is remaining on the sidelines in the presidential race, not endorsing anyone.

"I've heard (Sadler) say many times before, 'I just like the guy,'" Buchanan says.

But Bush's relationship with Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock is probably the best example of his ability to deal with Democrats. Bush courted Bullock assiduously after his election and the two developed a harmonious relationship, with Bush often dropping by Bullock's office unannounced to shoot the breeze and plot legislative strategy.

Bullock endorsed Bush for re-election, even though Bullock was the godfather of one of Democratic candidate Gerry Mauro's children. He said there was no reason to replace Bush, who he called the "best governor" the state ever had. He endorsed Bush for president before his death last year.

Bush overwhelmingly won re-election in 1998 with 68 percent of the vote and he often points out that he was the first Texas governor to be re-elected to consecutive four-year terms. However, Texas governors have only served four-year terms since 1978. Previous governors served for two years and multiple governors won two or three consecutive two-year terms before 1978.

Democrats, however, say Mauro was underfunded while Bush raised a record $15 million for the race. Voter turnout also was the worst in that nation that year, at 26 percent.

"That means Bush is actually the choice of about 18 percent -- not exactly a political juggernaut," says Jim Hightower, a Democrat who served as agriculture commissioner in Texas.

Texas Democrats more conservative

Bush has emphasized his ability to deal with Democrats in his presidential bid. He mentioned Bullock in his nomination acceptance speech as an example of how he worked "with Republicans and Democrats to get things done."

However, working with Democrats in Texas is a little easier for a Republican governor because Texas Democrats are much more conservative than their national counterparts.

Hightower, now a liberal radio talk show host, says the Texas legislature has "nowhere near the situation of partisan conflict" that people associate with Congress.

"Well, they're Democrats in name, but the truth is, a good two-thirds of the Texas legislature are Republicans," he says. "Some wear a Democratic mask, and some wear a Republican mask."

In Washington, Buchanan says, Bush would "be dealing with a more determined Democratic opposition whereas the Democrats in Texas are largely a part of the same centrist, pro-business coalition that Bush is a part of and the liberal wing is much smaller and less organized and less influential."

Earl Black, a political scientist and presidential scholar at Rice University, says Bush is untested in a partisan atmosphere, never having faced the "daily artillery fire" of Washington-style partisanship as governor.

"Tom Daschle will not be a natural ally of President Bush," he says, referring to the Democratic Senate minority leader from South Dakota.

Black says Bush will likely seek out moderate Democrats in both houses of Congress to find support for his legislative initiatives, as he did in Texas.

"The difference is going to be that he'll have to look to find a Bob Bullock," he says. "That will be a search."

Bush could face trouble negotiating major ideological divides separating the two parties in Congress. His only major failure in Texas was the 1997 defeat of his ambitious plan to rewrite Texas' tax code. He allowed the plan to be rewritten by the Democrats in the state House but when it reached the Republican-dominated Senate, it ran into Republican opposition over raising taxes.

Bush chose not to make a major push for the bill and it died in the Senate. Buchanan says Bush made the decision not to push for it to avoid a confrontation and alienating legislators.

"He doesn't want to alienate the people he has to work with and that kind of ties his hands on the dimension of using the bully pulpit a little bit," Buchanan says. "Precisely because he places high value on good, cordial personal relations, he doesn't want to use public relations leverage in a way that will alienate people that he needs on other measures."

Divided Congress likely

Not only would Bush face a more partisan environment in Washington, but he also would likely face a divided Congress. Charlie Cook, publisher of the Cook Political Report, says the likely outcome of the congressional races will be a "microscopic" Republican or Democratic majority in the House and the already small GOP majority in the Senate reduced further.

The presidential election also will likely have a very narrow margin, Cook says, giving whoever wins no real mandate. But Cook says Bush's governing style and his personality would give him the edge over Vice President Al Gore in dealing with Congress.

"I just don't think there's any doubt at all that a President Bush would have a better relationship with a Democratic Congress than a President Gore would have with a Republican Congress," he says.

While he says Gore has more experience than Bush, Cook says his temperament is not to cultivate relationships, noting that he had very few friends in the Senate.

"Either way, Washington is going to be a strange place in the next two years," he says.

With a deadlocked Congress and a president elected with a narrow margin, Cook says the next president likely will implement new domestic policy initiatives via government departments and agencies, which are controlled by the executive branch, in an attempt to circumvent Congress.

"They're having a hard time doing appropriation bills. Imagine doing real initiatives," Cook says.

But Buchanan says Bush can change the tone of Washington. "Do I think it's automatic? No. Do I think he could lighten the tone a little bit? I think it's quite possible," he says.

Black agreed, saying Bush has the skills to produce bipartisanship because he is not a partisan. "That is a characteristic that would really be tested," he says.

But should a major ideological issue divide the parties, that bipartisan atmosphere might dissipate.

"I think the governor might be able to restore a measure of that if he's there, although it's not likely to survive a major disagreement over a hot issue, for example, like a Supreme Court nominee that Democrats and liberals find objectionable," Buchanan says.

Inside the White House

As president, Bush would bring a business-style approach to running the White House, delegating many issues to staff and focusing on key issues important to him, like education and defense spending.

Black says Bush would be very involved on first-tier issues like education but rely on staff to gather information on issues that didn't pique his interest.

"That's a style he would be very comfortable with," he says.

Bush's style is often compared to that of former President Ronald Reagan, who relied heavily on staff but also was accused of being out of touch.

Buchanan says Bush is not likely to be criticized for being out of touch but says he is susceptible to criticism on being "underbriefed and understudied" because "he combines his distaste for long meetings and complicated issues with a distaste for study and reading."

Bush has the reputation of preferring short memos and short presentations by staff. He reserved 15 minutes on his schedule to conduct the final review of scheduled prisoner executions where he had to decide to let the execution proceed or grant a 30-day clemency stay. Bush wrote in his autobiography that deciding to let an execution go forward is "by far the most profound" decision a governor can make.

A reliance on staff is likely to be most apparent on international policy, regarded as one of Bush's weakest issues. Bush brought advisers to Austin in 1999 to brief him on international policy issues and a Bush presidency would rely on many of the experts who worked in his father's administration, including his running mate, former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney.

Buchanan sees one danger for Bush in his reliance on staff and advisers.

"I think that is a potential threat to him when the experts he relies on happen to disagree. Any president at one time or the other is going to be confronted with bad advice," he says. "The astute ones figure out how to recognize that and how to learn enough to know when they're in the presence of bad advice."

Focus, focus, focus

Buchanan says Bush has shown in his preparation for the debates that he can do his homework when he's mobilized. "For the most part, he does that when he has to and not as a matter of routine," he says.

On the campaign trail, Bush has steadily focused on issues like education, his proposed tax cut and defense spending. David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union, says he was surprised by Bush's ability to remain focused on his message during his first gubernatorial campaign.

"He didn't waver from that agenda," he says. "He had that same discipline and that same focus as he ran in the primaries for the Republican nomination and he seems to have that focus today."

But Bush is unlikely to focus on any controversial issues, Buchanan says.

"His dominant motif is cautious incrementalism and he chooses issues that are intrinsically popular," Buchanan says. "He chooses issues to focus on, like education, for example, which nobody is opposed to, and he takes positions on them that, for the most part, are likely to generate agreement."

However, Buchanan says his failed tax plan in Texas showed a bolder side to Bush that had not been apparent before. Buchanan says Bush learned a lesson from his father's re-election defeat that a politician should use his political capital on an issue, otherwise it might dissipate, as his father's did after the Persian Gulf war.

Black suggests that one controversial and complicated issue Bush might tackle is reforming Social Security, which he calls a "huge monster." Bush has proposed some partial privatization to the system, which Democrats oppose.

"It really does raise the stakes for him," Black says.

But while Bush is not a partisan in the mold of Newt Gingrich, he definitely is a conservative. His philosophy is that government should have a limited role and he would look to the private sector for solutions first, Buchanan says.

"I don't think you would hear him say, as Ronald Reagan did, that government is the problem," he says. "He thinks it has a role but it ought to be limited and he holds that attitude, I would say, relatively lightly. He will compromise when he has to."

CNN Producer Bill Smee contributed to this report.