A Glimpse Of President-In-Waiting George W. Bush
JONATHAN MANN, INSIGHT (voice-over): Moving man - George W. Bush is packing for the White House and preparing for the presidency. On the road from Texas to Washington, expect a few bumps along the way. (on camera): Hello, and welcome. There were moving vans outside the governor's mansion in Austin, Texas, Monday. The president-elect is leaving the home he has occupied for the last six years to head to a new one he can expect to have for at least four. His inauguration is Saturday, January 20. Well, between then and now, two more weeks of transition. On our program today - a glimpse of the president-in-waiting. We begin with Ronald Brownstein and a look at some of Mr. Bush's plans and some of his problems.</s>RONALD BROWNSTEIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Like every new president George W. Bush's road to the White House was paved with promises. Here's a look at the top five that Bush may find tough to keep. School vouchers - Bush says that low-income parents whose kids attend failing public schools should receive vouchers to transfer their children to private schools if they choose. But almost all Democrats oppose vouchers, as do many moderate Republicans who fear they'll drain money from the public schools. Bush's bargaining power was weakened in November, when voters in California and Michigan rejected pro-voucher ballot initiatives. Social Security - it was one of Bush's boldest campaign proposals. A fundamental restructuring of Social Security to allow workers to invest part of their payroll tax in the stock market.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: The idea works very simply. A younger worker can take some portion of his or her payroll tax and put it into a fund that invests in stocks and bonds.</s>BROWNSTEIN: With more and more Americans investing in mutual funds and 401(k)s, the idea of private investment accounts may grow more popular over time. But in a Senate divided 50-50 between the parties, the votes aren't there for it today. Only four Democrats supported the idea last year, and three of them have left the Senate. Missile defense - talking tough on national defense last year, Bush promised to quickly build and deploy a national missile defense program. And he said he wouldn't be stopped by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile, or ABM, Treaty between the U.S. and Russia, which bars the deployment of such a system.</s>BUSH: It is important for us to change the ABM Treaty with Russia, either change it or withdraw from it in order to make sure we have adequate and effective and reliable theater-based anti-ballistic missile system. (</s>BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, NBC'S MEET THE PRESS) TIM RUSSERT, HOST, NBC'S MEET THE PRESS: If the Russians say no, how long would you give them before you pulled out of that treaty?</s>BUSH: Reasonable. Reasonable is not year or years.</s>RUSSERT: Months?</s>BUSH: Yes, sir.</s>BROWNSTEIN: With the current missile defense system failing to hit the target in two of the three tests the Pentagon has run so far, it will be hard for Bush to win broad support for a crash deployment program. Tax cuts - few of Bush's campaign proposals were more controversial than his call for a $1.3 trillion tax cut. But with the economy wavering and the federal budget surplus estimate soaring, he's got a good shot at winning approval of a substantial tax reduction this year. The question will be, which taxes and whose taxes are cut? Bush wants an across-the-board cut in income tax rate, including a big cut in the top rate for the wealthiest tax payers from 39.6 percent down to 33 percent.</s>BUSH: The federal government in peace time has no business taking more than 33 percent of anyone's paycheck.</s>BROWNSTEIN: But cutting the top rate so much after a decade in which the families at the top have done well enough to trade in the Cadillac for the Mercedes is a deal-breaker for Democrats. Finally - bipartisanship. Beyond all of his policy promises, Bush centered his campaign on a sweeping pledge to reach beyond party lines and soothe the partisan hostilities in Washington.</s>BUSH: I will set a different tone in Washington,</s>D.C. BROWNSTEIN: Bush has a strong record of working effectively with Democrats in Texas, but almost everything that's happened since Election Day has been a reminder of how hard it will be to continue that success in Washington. Democrats are already complaining that Bush hasn't shown more bipartisanship in constructing his Cabinet or outlining his agenda. Civil rights groups are gearing up to oppose John Ashcroft as attorney general. Environmentalists are waving a red flag over Interior Secretary-nominee Gale Norton. The AFL-CIO is digging in against Labor Secretary-designate Linda Chavez. On the other side, conservatives are warning Bush against too many compromises with Democrats. (on camera): So, in the end, if Bush wants to make good on his hard promises, nothing will test him more than his pledge to build real bipartisan cooperation in a capital that's grown addicted to conflict.</s>MANN: We heard there about some of George W. Bush's Cabinet nominees who could have trouble obtaining Senate approval. The most serious problem so far concerns the president-elect's choice of labor secretary. Linda Chavez faces questions about an illegal immigrant who once lived in her home. Chavez says the woman was not an employee, but that she gave her some money to reach out to people in need, as she put it. The labor secretary nominee said she did not know that the woman was an illegal immigrant, and George W. Bush says he is sticking by his choice.</s>BUSH: I do remain confident in Linda. She's a good person, got a good - she'd make a fine Cabinet secretary.</s>REPORTER: Did she do anything wrong by - in that situation?</s>BUSH: As far as I can tell, from what I read, I think she's certainly qualified to be Cabinet secretary.</s>REPORTER: Is this consistent with your comments on enforcing immigrations laws strictly.</s>BUSH: No, as I said, from what I can tell from, what I've read in the press accounts that she's perfectly qualified to be the labor secretary.</s>MANN: We're going to take a break, then look at an old adversary who's determined to press his agenda on the president-elect and is not willing to wait. Stay with us.</s>MANN (voice-over): Campaign finance reform probably wouldn't have been a major issue in the U.S. presidential election if it weren't for John McCain. The maverick Republican senator ran against George W. Bush for their party's presidential nomination, making campaign fund raising his issue. McCain wanted to regulate soft money - unlimited donations to political parties that can be used on behalf of the candidates. The Arizona senator lost the nomination to Bush, but he hasn't lost his issue. (on camera): Welcome back. John McCain wants his campaign finance reform bill to be introduced within days of George W. Bush's inauguration. Other top Republicans want the new president to have more time to settle into office before taking on that potentially explosive issue. CNN's Patty Davis has more.</s>PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Risking a clash with his former rival, Arizona senator John McCain is vowing to push campaign finance reform in the Senate immediately after inauguration.</s>JOHN MCCAIN, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: I don't believe that it would, quote, "cut the legs out from under President Bush." In fact, I think it would not interfere.</s>DAVIS: But President-Elect George W. Bush, the Senate's Republican leadership and even some Democrats disagree. They'd rather Bush lead with his legislative agenda, including a $1.3 trillion tax cut.</s>JOHN BREAUX, DEMOCRATIC SENATOR: I think the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law is going to be controversial. There will be a great deal of debate. I'd kind of hoped that we could not lead with that issue because it is divisive.</s>DAVIS: It's not just McCain's timing that troubles the Bush camp, it wants any legislation that bans unregulated soft money to address free speech concerns and include restrictions on labor unions.</s>GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: One way to do that is for there to be paycheck protection, so that a union member will be able to opt out of a union spending money if he or she doesn't like the purpose for which it's being spent.</s>JOHN KERRY, DEMOCRATIC SENATOR: Their use of the labor argument really camouflage for their desire to keep the situation where it is, which is their ability to raise more money faster, easier.</s>DAVIS: McCain says he's open to amendments on the issue. But with the addition of conservative Republican Thad Cochran to his cause...</s>THAD COCHRAN, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: I think the time is now when we need to reform campaign financing laws.</s>DAVIS: ... McCain says he now has the 60 votes he needs to stop Republicans from filibustering his campaign finance bill to death. (on camera): Far from throwing up roadblocks to Bush's agenda, McCain claims his approach would clear the way for the reforms Bush wants in everything from education to the tax code by lessening the clout special interests wield in the halls of Congress. Patty Davis, CNN, Washington.</s>MANN: Joining us now to talk about what's happening and what's ahead is Michael Weisskopf, senior Washington correspondent for Time magazine. Thanks so much for being with us.</s>MICHAEL WEISSKOPF, TIME MAGAZINE: Good to be here, Jonathan.</s>MANN: I'm going to ask you about John McCain in a moment. But first, let me just ask you about the big picture. When you look at the transition, when you look at the campaign promises, the Cabinet that's being assembled, the Congress that the new president is going to have to work with, how do things look for George W. Bush?</s>WEISSKOPF: It's a pretty smooth and efficient start, certainly compared to the early Clinton entree. And he will have some bumps in the road with his nominations to the Cabinet. The McCain proposal serves as kind of a potentially divisive wedge. But on the whole, I think he's progressing pretty smoothly and more easily than anyone thought.</s>MANN: Let me ask you about the Cabinet then. What kind of Cabinet has he assembled?</s>WEISSKOPF: Well, on the foreign policy side, Jonathan, it is a group of hardened pragmatists, people who've been there before to make the decisions and have made them before. On the domestic side, however, he seems to have placated the right wing of the Republican Party. And there in the choice of Linda Chavez for labor secretary, John Ashcroft for attorney general and Gale Norton for interior secretary, he's picked people who are agreeable to Christian conservatives, big business and the kind of right flank of the Republicans.</s>MANN: What's going to happen to them? The Senate is famously tied at 50-50. Can he get them confirmed?</s>WEISSKOPF: He's going to have trouble probably with Chavez and with Ashcroft, and the reason being is that this is a president who promised to be a uniter. And he's united the Democratic Party and its interest groups against those two candidates in particular. The most important parts of the Democratic Party are labor, women's groups, African-American groups and environmental groups. And they have common cause for opposing both of those candidates - and possibly also the interior secretary Cabinet.</s>MANN: In a nutshell, what's the problem with them?</s>WEISSKOPF: This is an election that was decided by a handful of votes. The Senate and the House are almost evenly divided in both places. And the Democrats believe it's a time for bipartisanship and for moderation. Those three candidates represent the more extreme positions in their areas.</s>MANN: Linda Chavez in particular, there is this question now being raised about whether she employed this alien, whether the alien was illegal, whether Linda Chavez knew it.</s>WEISSKOPF: Yes.</s>MANN: Is that basically just an excuse? Is it because of their ideological positions or all of a sudden the idea that someone might have had an illegal immigrant in their home really offended Democrats?</s>WEISSKOPF: Linda Chavez enters with a very strong wave of opposition to her for reasons pretty obvious to the labor movement. She is anti minimum wage increase. She's against affirmative action. She sides with big business on labor issues such family leave. Those are reasons enough for labor to oppose her and for Democrats, who labor support, to look against her. When something new comes in, the sort of straw that breaks the camel's back, traditionally it has magnified effect. It ends up tipping the balance even more because she begins with a foundation of opposition to her.</s>MANN: The Democrats are going to oppose this nomination. They are expected to. But what is John McCain doing? Let's go back full circle - we began this part of the program talking about his campaign finance legislation that George W. Bush doesn't want to see and opposes. What is he thinking?</s>WEISSKOPF: Well, of course, John McCain, when he dropped out, became a pretty warm supporter and hard fighter for George Bush. That doesn't mean he was giving up his own identity and his own ambitions in the process. Really, he stands, more than anything else in this campaign, for campaign - in his career, for campaign finance reform. And he won't wait for anyone. The beginning of an administration is often the best time to move legislation. He wants to get in front of the line. So what the prospect for Bush is the first legislative fight could be within his own party.</s>MANN: Michael Weisskopf, please stay with us. We're going to take break. And then when we come back, an oddity in U.S. politics. Before a president-elect has time to prove himself in office, he gets tested in transition. A look at that in a moment.</s>MANN (voice-over): Out with the old, in with the new. U.S. president-elects have just 10 weeks to fill thousands of jobs. George W. Bush had even less time because of the uncertainty that followed his contest with Al Gore. Regardless of the timeframe, the transition has become a test of the new leader, and the media are keeping score. (on camera): Welcome back. You'd think that after the intensity of the U.S. election campaign that the transition period would be a quiet time. But the media simply switches gears, looking for signs indicating whether U.S. voters have chosen wisely. Here's CNN's Howard Kurtz.</s>HOWARD KURTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No sooner had George W. Bush emerged with a less-than-landslide victory in Florida than the pundits started dumping on the new president's prospects.</s>CHARLES COOK, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: There are going to be a lot of people who say he's a lame duck from day one.</s>KURTZ: But history shows that media commentators are often wrong about an incoming president, especially during his transition and first months in office. Early stumbles or successes may turn out to be a mere blip in the long run. When Bill Clinton took the reins from Bush's father, the press criticized the baby-boomer president for presiding over chaos. The New York Times called it the worst transition in modern memory, with all the dignity and order of a mudslide. On his first day in office, Clinton touched off a flap about gays in the military. On his second day, he withdrew his nomination of Zoe Baird as attorney general over her problems with an illegal nanny.</s>BILL CLINTON, U.S. PRESIDENT: I feel very badly about it, but I'm responsible for it.</s>KURTZ: As other nominees fell by the wayside, much of the press and the pundits gave the new president failing grades.</s>MARK SHIELDS, CNN'S CAPITAL GANG: Bill Clinton has been getting the stuffing kicked out of him during the transition for seeming to change from the campaign.</s>KURTZ: Clinton was also stiffing the White House press corps, preferring such venues as LARRY KING LIVE, and he paid a price. Things got so bad that George Stephanopoulos had to step down as communications director, and the young staff resented the hiring of David Gergen, a Republican, to deal with the media. But despite these early problems, Clinton regained his political footing and was easily reelected four years later. George Bush, Sr. assumed power in 1988 after a rough, racially charged campaign in which Newsweek famously derided him as a wimp. But suddenly, said Barbara Walters, it's as if Clark Kent became Superman. Brit Hume spoke of a new George Bush. He was the regular guy going to the White House, said The New York Times. He went fishing and jogging with reporters. But Bush hit a major pothole soon after taking office.</s>GEORGE BUSH, FMR. U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm going to strongly continue to back Senator Tower, and I do not believe he is going down the drain.</s>KURTZ: When the Senate rejected John Tower as his defense secretary, the press quickly turned on Bush, saying there is a deepening sense that something is badly amiss.</s>ROBERT NOVAK, CNN'S CAPITAL GANG: The whole trouble is that George Bush is starting this week off with too much symbolism and no agenda.</s>KURTZ: That was the complaint four years later when, despite Bush's victory in the Gulf War, he was evicted by the voters. Ronald Reagan, by all press accounts, had a terrible transition. His profile so low it was practically invisible. The Washington Post said that he seems to be remote from the process of shaping his own administration. Reagan held only one news conference in the two months after his election. When his choices for secretary of state and labor were announced, Reagan was off getting a haircut. He spent much of the time at his Pacific Palisades home or clearing brush at his ranch. One day soon after the election, Reagan told reporters there would be no personnel decisions that day. But James Baker and Ed Meese were announced as top White House aides just hours later. When his first eight Cabinet nominees made a joint appearance, Reagan didn't even watch the whole event on television. The great communicator was, well, not communicating. But Reagan got off to a fast start when the American hostages in Iran were released the day he was sworn in. And with his actor's flair, Reagan became a successful two- term president, despite media carping that he was out of touch. (on camera): Journalists have a seemingly insatiable desire to forecast the future - to presume, for example, that a president elected by 537 votes won't be able to get much done. No one knows whether George Bush will make them eat those words a year from now, but remember, it's happened before.</s>MANN: Michael Weisskopf, senior Washington correspondent for Time magazine, is back with us. Well, you heard what Howard Kurtz has to say.</s>WEISSKOPF: Yes.</s>MANN: We might look at the transition period as a time when the world learns about the president-elect and the president-elect learns about their new world. The way Howard tells it, nobody really learns anything. It's just too soon. Is it just too soon to have a good guess at what George W. Bush is going to be like?</s>WEISSKOPF: It is. We have to think in politics, or at least Washington politics, as 90-day segments. And I guess that this is a period that might reflect on how well George W. will do in his first 90 days. After all, in the case of President Clinton, he knew because of difficulty with his appointments that he was going to have to go pretty much solo in the Congress - that is, within his own party, not to reach out for Republican help. And in fact, his first couple of years are really consumed with trying to pass legislation by the slimmest of majorities. To some extent, this is a period which will determine the same for George W. If, for instance, Democrats gang up and knock off some of his nominees, he may well see a strategy more profitable of going only within his own party.</s>MANN: Well, let me ask you about that. Is there any way to guess, on the basis of what is know about George W. Bush, whether we're going to see audacity, or whether we're going to see great caution when he approaches Congress and the job he's about to begin?</s>WEISSKOPF: What we know about George W. is his experience in Texas, which was one really of being a bridge-maker, a broker between parties, an attempt to sort of build his own coalitions around issues without concern for party. We're not certain how he's going to go here. However, his appointments, at least in these domestic areas, suggest that he is going to go all Republican because - and forget about Democratic support - because he's so alienated Democratic interest groups.</s>MANN: Did Florida cost him anything? There was a suggestion as the court cases were dragging and dragging on that the new administration was losing valuable time. Can you see that now?</s>WEISSKOPF: You'll see it more, Jonathan, in his lower level appointments - the deputies, for instance. He had to spend his time on the top guys, the matinee characters who will be filling our nightly news for the next months and years, and not in the kind of depth that he might have looked at if he had more time. The same is true for his White House crew. He was able, of course, to pick the so-called "iron triangle" from Texas - three aides he had with him in Austin. But not much beyond that, and that may well hurt him, too.</s>MANN: One of the things, again, that was being said in Florida, predicted threat that would hurt him, was the polarization of the country. People said that the debate and the contest over who really won that election was so profoundly troubling to so many Americans that the country would be cut down the middle when George W. Bush finally took charge of it. Do you see that still?</s>WEISSKOPF: You'll see that in the test over his nominees for Cabinet. African-American groups, for instance, were so alienated by the outcome in Florida that they were ready to go. And when John Ashcroft was named as attorney general nominee, they began mobilizing very quickly. And the same was true for the environmental community. Both those groups and labor invested very heavily in the Gore campaign, both in terms of manpower and money, and they were - felt they were very antagonized by the outcome of Florida. And really, the mobilization began then. Now they've got a cause to come together again.</s>MANN: We began this program by looking at the Bush agenda and hearing some of the reasons that he might or might not succeed in getting it adopted. Do you think we're going to see at the very beginning a big tax cut, a big change in education, some major departures when it comes to military or international policy?</s>WEISSKOPF: Really, the smart question is what will he be proposing? And the thinking was initially that he be going in with a more moderate piecemeal program. However, his nominees suggest that he's going to go straight out and try to go for the whole ball of wax at first. Most members of Congress and leaders think that that's a big mistake.</s>MANN: Michael Weisskopf of Time magazine, thanks so much for being with us once again.</s>WEISSKOPF: Good to be here.</s>MANN: One final thing before we go. When the Clinton administration ends, one drama of the Clinton years will drag on. The independent counsel investigating his conduct in the matter of Monica Lewinsky is, yes, still at work, and the counsel could still pursue a legal case against Mr. Clinton. A prominent Republican lawmaker is urging the incoming president to pardon the outgoing. For his part, Mr. Bush says it is time, in his words, to get all of this business behind us. "Let him move on and enjoy life and become an active participant in the American system," Mr. Bush said of Mr. Clinton. But he also said he wouldn't pardon someone who has never been formally accused of a crime. So the case continues. That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. You can see a lot more about the transition and the inauguration preparations on the CNN Web site at allpolitics.com. Thanks for joining us. END TO ORDER VIDEOTAPES AND TRANSCRIPTS OF CNN INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMMING, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE THE SECURE ONLINE ORDER FROM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com