Q: What past president is Bush's management style most reminiscent of?

A: Oh, I think it's most reminiscent of Dwight Eisenhower, who had a very strong and well-organized staff structure. Eisenhower did not meddle in the details of policy, but reserved for himself the critical decisions and built a very strong team around him and felt that he could rely on that team. I think George Bush will be doing very much the same thing, which is why he chose Dick Cheney as his vice president, someone who politically might not be that strong. He's obviously going to try to bring Colin Powell into the administration, and he has a strong national security adviser in Condoleezza Rice.

He will build a strong team, that team will be well organized and Bush himself will not be the guy who dips down into the details of policy, which might be different from Al Gore, who I think -- although he will also obviously try to build a strong team -- will be more willing to share ideas about policy with that team rather than reserving himself as the final decision maker.

Q: What is Bush's greatest strength, both as a candidate and as a leader? His greatest weakness?

A: His greatest strength as a candidate and leader is that he seems comfortable with himself. He has developed a political style that, while it's not inspirational like Ronald Reagan or Theodore Roosevelt, is effective. It's a style that doesn't seem to vary very much from moment to moment. He also seems to be a resilient and resourceful politician, as we saw when he was almost done in after the New Hampshire primary by John McCain; he was able to bounce back from that and become a pretty effective candidate.

Also, in this case like Ronald Reagan, he's a conservative, but he's not a threatening conservative. The notion of compassionate conservative applies well to George W. Bush. Americans like their conservatives smiling like Ronald Reagan; they don't like them snarling like Pat Buchanan. Thus, I think, while Bush is a solidly conservative candidate, he has found a way of presenting that without being threatening to the American people.

His greatest weakness is where Al Gore's greatest strength may lie, and that is in the details of policy. While Gore may have told embellished stories, Bush often seems caught up in a lack of understanding of some of the issues and policy matters. He didn't get right what was going on with the sentencing of the three murderers in the state of Texas, he got some of the details on foreign policy wrong, he couldn't seem to respond to Gore's attack on the statistics showing that Texas was last or next to last in health care coverage.

If you press him on the details of policy or the details of current controversies, he seems to falter and resort to generalities. One other strength of Bush that I thought emerged in the debate[s] is that he does seem to be able to transcend his lack of comfort with the details, and continually get back to his big themes. I think he's very effective in continuing to hammer, in an appealing way, his big themes of smaller government and individual empowerment.

Q: What would you expect in the first 100 days of the Bush administration?

A: I would certainly expect to see an attempt to cash in on his tax cut promises. He was quite effective in the state of Texas in delivering a major tax cut, and I think he's going to want to see, finally, a large Republican-oriented tax cut become the legacy of his first 100 days. That is something Republicans have really not achieved since the early days of the very first Reagan administration, nearly 20 years ago.

Q: How much has Bush's experience prepared him for the job? Would he be surprised by any of the demands it entails?

A: Obviously, he doesn't have the same kind of lustrous national resume that Al Gore does, but on the other hand, some of our greatest presidents, including Abraham Lincoln, have not had that kind of resume. Neither, of course, did Bill Clinton, who was the governor of a small state.

I do think he's got a lot to learn when it comes to national issues and the kind of decision-making that a president would make. But on the other hand, unlike Al Gore, he has been a chief executive. He has been a governor, and some of our most successful presidents have gone from governorships to the presidency.

What I do think he will find surprising, moving from the governor of a single state where the governor has limited powers, is the enormous range of matters with which he must become conversant and the enormous range of issues on which he as the final decision maker must rule. Yeah, he can have Colin Powell and Dick Cheney advising him, but in the end it's going to be George W. Bush who's going to have to make life-and-death decisions for the country, and maybe the world.

Q: Given Bush's family history, how difficult has it been for him to emerge as his own man?

A: Ironically, W. doesn't seem to have had that much difficulty emerging as his own man. He does seem to have his own style, which is a little bit different from that of his dad, who's a lot more uptight and seems less comfortable in the political role. And as the governor of Texas, as the chief executive officer, the number one guy in that state, he really has been able to operate independently from the shadow of his father, whereas Al Gore, becoming a senator like his dad, then becoming vice president, has not really had a role like George W. has had, where he has been in the spotlight.

I don't think there are too many folks out there who are thinking George W. isn't his own man, although there are some who I think might believe he's kind of trying to reconstruct his dad's administration, bringing back together the same kind of folks to hold him by the hand and lead him through the administration -- people, of course, like Colin Powell and Dick Cheney. But Bush seems to have developed his own style, he seems comfortable with that style and his problem is not that he appears to be unable to emerge as an independent person.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add or emphasize?

A: I think I would emphasize that, not only do you have two different kinds of individuals, as was obvious to anyone watching the debates, but you do have two very different political philosophies that will matter for the country. On critical issues, these two men do differ sharply.

[...]

With the House up for grabs, the Senate up for grabs and the Supreme Court up for grabs, this is an absolutely critical presidential election that is going to set us on one of two very different courses heading into the twenty-first century.

Allan Lichtman is the chair of the history department at American University. His books include "The Keys to the White House," and he is a columnist for the Montgomery (County, Maryland) Gazette.

Note: The professor's comments on Gore and on Bush come from the same interview. Comments that apply to both candidates will appear in both transcripts of the interview.

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