Bush as president: Make decisions, then 'let's get on with it'

WASHINGTON - If George W. Bush is elected president, he'll run his White House with a Ronald Reagan style of management and charm - and some big names from his own father's administration.

Like former President Reagan, Bush is a delegator who leans heavily on trusted advisers to shape his decisions. He sketches goals in broad brushstrokes and leaves the details to others.

Unlike Democratic rival Al Gore, Bush would set just a few priorities and concentrate on them. For example, a major interest is teaching kids to read. He would spend $5 billion on that program alone, an amount second only to college scholarships in his education plan.

Other marquee initiatives in his Republican presidential campaign are a partial privatization of Social Security and $1.3 trillion in tax cuts.

His social policies would mark a conservative turn from the Clinton administration on issues from abortion to gay rights to gun control. He wants to open up more federal land for oil exploration.

Both Bush and Gore are trying to persuade Americans they are political centrists. ''But Bush would govern from the center right and Gore would govern from the center left,'' said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia.

Bush says he'll reach across party lines to achieve results where President Clinton and Gore have failed. As governor, he turned on the charm with Democrats in Austin, and he says he can do the same thing in Washington.

Bush points with pride to the warm relationship he developed with the late Bob Bullock, the lieutenant governor and longtime Democratic powerhouse in Texas. Bullock surprised his party by endorsing Bush's re-election as governor in 1998.

Working with the Democrats, Bush was able to win approval of packages to improve school performance and to make the state more attractive to business investors.

But some Republicans have doubts about Bush's schmooze strategy. He will face a Congress where power is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans and where compromise could prove elusive.

''I'm skeptical charm alone will do it,'' said C. Boyden Gray, White House counsel in the Bush administration. ''You know, President Bush had lots of charm and I don't think it got him that far.''

A Harvard MBA, Bush speaks of himself as a chief executive officer with ''a good team of people.'' When he gets something in writing, he wants it brief. He chooses aides who are extremely loyal and gives them a lot of room.

''If there's a problem there, it's a combination of underpreparation for the national policy debate - underpreparation combined with a distaste for study,'' said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas political scientist. ''Those two things together make him extraordinarily reliant on advice.''

Clay Johnson, a boyhood pal and now the governor's chief of staff, said, ''He doesn't linger over decisions and doesn't second guess - 'That's the decision, let's get on with it. Next topic,''' Johnson said. ''He's a very high energy, frenetic type of person.''

Bush has little patience when people are unprepared for a meeting. ''He'll stop it in a hurry and sort of brusquely dispatch the group. 'Go do this or that,''' Johnson said.

Inexperienced in national security matters, Bush would look for guidance from his vice president, Dick Cheney, who was secretary of defense for President Bush during the Persian Gulf War and chief of staff for President Ford.

Bush says the United States should be cautious about sending troops abroad. He argues that the military is overextended and says European allies should take the place of American soldiers in the Balkans.

He makes no secret of the fact he wants Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to be his secretary of State.

When he tells audiences at joint appearances with Powell that, under a Bush administration, the general might be coaxed out of retirement, Powell beams.

Two other former advisers to the elder Bush are likely to get high-profile jobs in a new Bush administration: former National Security Council official Condoleezza Rice and former Federal Reserve Board member Lawrence Lindsey.

Bush would set the general tone and direction of his White House and then turn policy implementation over to senior people, said Cal Jillson, chairman of the political science department at Southern Methodist University.

''He would organize and manage it in a way that would be more like Ronald Reagan did than, say, Jimmy Carter or President Clinton or anyone who is interested in policy or its details,'' Jillson said.

Fred Greenstein, a political science professor at Princeton University, said Bush's discipline of choosing just a few issues, staying on message and turning on the charm is very Reaganesque. ''What's obviously missing is the Reagan ''Great Communicator'' style. This man is clearly not a silver-tongued orator.''

Like Reagan, Bush is no workaholic. As governor, he takes a two-hour midday break to exercise, play video games or nap. He likes to lift weights. He runs a mile in 7 minutes, 15 seconds.

Unlike Clinton, he shows up on time.

A former partner in the Texas Rangers, Bush takes time in the morning to thumb through the sports pages and study the baseball box scores.

Bush takes a feather pillow with him whenever he travels and likes to be in bed before 10 p.m. He frequently ends his day with a couple of nonalcoholic beers.