The Son Also Rises

...They have given local school districts much more authority to mind their own affairs and have also beefed up the way the state measures results, which should strengthen accountability...

...It became the metaphor for the campaign...

...As a candidate, Bush laid out "a few simple but profound tasks" and never quit hammering away at them...

...He also wants to make the welfare system more efficient by moving the "easiest" people off the rolls first and then spending the savings on difficult cases (like girls who had children so early in life that they never went beyond elementary school...

...The legacy I'd like to leave when it's all done," he says, "is: 'Here's a guy who came, he set clear and understandable goals, and he remained absolutely focused.'" Bush chose to "do a few things and do them well" during his first year in office "because I understand full well that government can't deliver everything to everybody...

...His critics charge that Bush has dedicated himself to uncontroversial issues—that when it comes to literacy and juvenile crime, he is only following an already established consensus rather than forging a new one...

...In the beginning I remember being struck by the fact that he'd go into an audience—and I could tell they were skeptical, that they were stuck on the whole 'son-of' thing...

...Four thousand new juvenile beds have been added to the system...

...Bush finishes the sentence for me: ". . . than my Dad, yeah...

...The other thing is I would jest in the campaign that I've got my daddy's eyes and my mother's mouth...

...He's all right...

...And it's the best thing I've done in terms of seeking a meaningful life...

...All of which is to say that there is something admirable when someone like George W. Bush actually grows up, if only because so many men like him never really do...

...It is true that he was elected to public office for the first time a little more than two years at the age of 48...

...I would be willing to defend this position as the best position not only for Texas, but for the nation...

...But it is worth remembering that his brother Jeb has the same last name—and Jeb lost the l994 governor's race in Florida he was supposed to win...

...It [would not be] inconsequential to break the jinx...

...He speaks of "a renewal of spirit in this country...

...Therefore I know it can change again...

...And that's another of my objections to our current president...

...And he wants to be president—he don't want to be vice president...

...When I see Bush, I tell him the word around town is he wouldn't want to be vice president—and that, after all, his entrepreneurial nature would preclude it...

...What's at stake here," says a Republican political consultant in Austin, "is nothing less than Bush's credentials for the presidency...

...And when he argues that "all of us instinctively know" that it is easier to pass along the tried-and-true values of " 'work hard, don't lie, cheat, or steal, you're responsible for your behavior' in a two-parent family," you don't think you're listening to warmed-over Dan Quayle...

...How do you know all this...

...He does lose some of his eloquence when the subject turns to abortion...

...a ll Bush's accomplishments and plans so far fit into his core theme: "Laws must insist that people be held accountable for their behavior....If you break the law, you will spend time marching in the heat...

...He talked about four specific things—juvenile justice reform, welfare reform, school reform, and tort reform—and after he was elected he shepherded all four through the legislature...

...Ann Richards, never missed an opportunity to call him a "shrub" or a "jerk...

...Bush wants the legislature to approve a massive restructuring of the Texas tax system, whose centerpiece is a $3 billion reduction in property taxes...

...When he says "I'm an optimistic man," people believe it...

...His education goal is to have every child reading by the third grade...

...And midway through, he'd win them over," says Don Sipple, the Republican media adviser who did Bush's ads...

...I think I've got a healthy skepticism toward certain things, and yet I've got an idealistic streak as well...

...When you can beat expectations, that's very important...

...Bush insists that the only business before him is the business of running Texas, and says he is "troubled by people who get too far of ahead of themselves in life...

...He has "two flippant answers to that," he says, "but I think there's some truth to them...

...I respect the Senate, it just doesn't fit in my nature...

...With an approval rating of 68 percent, Bush has a lot of political capital to play with right now...

...Though his themes and even his words are familiar from other Republican politicians, Bush brings rare passion to them...

...According to a friend, young George's "deputy mom" was an immigrant housekeeper, and the issue "is almost Biblical with him," Sipple says...

...Austin is a small political town, and on the way in from the airport I ask the cabdriver what he thinks of his governor...

...He is working on a plan to integrate religious and charitable organizations into the welfare system, which would allow them, along with the state, to deliver services to recipients...

...One of the roles of leaders is to create a highly hopeful environment as opposed to a cynical environment," Bush says, "and if you promise all things to all people and deliver a few things to some people, you will have a cynical population on your hands...

...And he is now being rewarded for assuming the mantle of responsibility by the Great Mentioner, who keeps placing him in the forefront of those who might battle for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000...

...They all hated something substantial in the president's character or record, yet they all gave the same answer when I asked why they were voting for Clinton anyway: "He's a people person...

...I imagine I could adjust," he says...

...Don Sipple saw this in Bush, so his ad strategy in 1994 was simple: He simply put the candidate in front of a camera and let him connect...

...The fact that he used to act up would give him a redemptive story to tell in a convention address, but he refuses to engage in talk about his future...

...During the 1994 campaign, he refused to take an explicit stand on the matter, focusing instead on his support for mandatory waiting periods and parental consent...

...If the eight percentage point gap between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton was all about "caring" and the ability to convey it, Sipple says, "then George Bush has the potential to narrow that gap...

...One is he was educated at Greenwich Country Day and I was educated at San Jacinto Junior High in Midland, Texas...

...If you had lived through what he lived through," the friend says, "you would want it too...

...He stays on message with journalists too...

...So when George W. actually showed up walking and talking at the same time—and doing it, as it happened, very well—it never failed to stun the crowds...

...Bill Clinton appropriated the idea during his campaign train trip last summer at a library where a child read him The Little Engine That Could...

...That quality, which I saw him unleash on the guests at that wedding more than twenty years ago, is pizzazz...

...When he gave up booze ten years ago, he says, "I just quit...

...By Julia Reed Ifirst met George W. Bush in 1976 at a very extravagant and fairly wild wedding in the Mississippi Delta...

...Having had the taste of being a CEO [of the Texas Rangers baseball team], of setting the tone, I'm not a good committee member...

...Heard that one before...

...He makes decisions based not upon philosophy but upon politics, which sends confusing signals...

...Most people who know him think he will run again, if for no other reason than the challenge...

...The tax plan is Bush's major legislative effort this year, and it is a gamble...

...He is much clearer about immigration, another so-called hot-button issue...

...He tries to explain how America has gotten itself trapped in a "culture of victimhood" and what can be done to change it, beginning with the laws he implemented regarding juvenile justice and welfare...

...After getting his "few simple" tasks passed in 1995, Bush sought to elaborate and expand on them in 1996...

...He was cocky, charming, and he was clearly enjoying himself...

...Fund-raisers, strategists, party insiders—all the Republicans who stand to gain either power or employment from a presidential run—have been watching him since the moment he took the oath of office in Austin in January 1995...

...His father was serving as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and so the Bush name was not yet a huge deal—but when coupled with young George's bad-boy good looks, the total package was enough to send the many eligible twen-tysomethings into a collective swoon...

...Throughout, his opponent, Gov...

...The Texas legislature meets every other year...

...I ask him...

...Tex-ans have a habit of voting out their governors," says a Texas political analyst...

...And he has Julia Reed is a regular contributor to Vogue...

...He believes that the sins of the father shall not be visited on the sons...

...His strategy so far has been to stay focused, do virtually no national media, damn sure don't talk about a presidential race or even a second term, and produce a solid record to show off in the end...

...Another friend says it was precisely the experience of watching his own father lose in 1992 that will propel him into a presidential race...

...And he points out that "there are a lot of jobs people in Texas won't do—laying tar in August or chopping cedars...

...If you don't pay court-ordered child support, the state suspends licenses—fishing licenses, legal licenses, medical licenses...

...Bush was, he says, "a little surprised" at Clinton's policy plagiarism, though he quickly adds that he was "glad President Clinton opted to give that in one speech...

...A little more than twenty years later, he has stopped drinking, stopped smoking, married a librarian, had twin girls, and joined the Methodist church...

...Bush has an interesting take on the man who brought down his father...

...That very name may have something to do with his star-tlingly high ranking in the Republican preference polls (he routinely comes in fourth behind Jack Kemp, Colin Powell, and Dan Quayle, outdoing Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander, among others...

...That displays a rare ability to stay "on message" for as long as it takes...

...Last year, while reporting on the presidential election, I talked to disabled vets, lifelong Republicans, and Democrats who were mad about the welfare bill...

...When the Yale football team "won the Ivy League championship against Princeton," recalls Donald Ensenat, his roommate in New Haven, "we tore down the goal post, and he was arrested...

...When I begin a question by pointing out that he is "different in style...

...sought to translate those concerns into public policy...

...In this, he resembles no one so much as Clinton...

...Bush says one of his primary roles as governor "is to use the bully pulpit," and he's a natural...

...I framed it the right way to frame it," he says now, "which is to challenge people to join me in reducing the number of abortions in this country...

...That tax cut would be offset in part with a half-a-cent increase in the state's high (6.25 percent) sales tax and new levies on businesses (especially on doctors, lawyers and others who belong to professional partnerships...

...Given his patrician background and youthful rowdi-ness, Bush's priorities could, after all, have been as unambitious as his next drink of whiskey, his next hunting trip, or his next pair of Guccis...

...Emphasis is placed on the individual...

...He wants to be president, but not yet...

...So far, he has worked the legislature like a seasoned pro, staying out of the spotlight and making allies of the Democrats who run the committees...

...And he has just put forward a proposal so ambitious it seems intended to answer those who accuse him of an excess of caution...

...He also has run a major-league baseball team that wins, become the governor of Texas in a race he was supposed to lose, and delivered one of the few good speeches at last summer's Republican convention, which he co-chaired...

...In his two years as governor, Bush and the Texas legislature have toughened up the juvenile justice system, with punishment the focus instead of rehabilitation...

...The one-time carouser is now obsessed with the issue of personal responsibility and by the cultural decay he says was brought on in part by the "if it feels good, do it" standard of his generation...

...She's straightforward and she's got a wicked sense of humor and there's an irreverence to her...

...He laughs, but then he fixes me with the very same blue-eye lock Bill Clinton uses to melt voters who want to resist him...

...Bush is very clear on what office he will never consider: "I'd rather do something else than be a U.S...

...Bush would like it to be the metaphor for his first term in Austin as well...

...Sam Donaldson put Bush's name at the top of his list a couple of weeks ago on Larry King Live, site of more than one campaign kickoff, but Donaldson is by no means the only one...

...Those who want him to want it make a strong case for his virtues as a candidate, beginning with his extraordinary discipline...

...It must be difficult to be on his staff...

...He has proposed an initiative that would allow cops to "stop and frisk" juvenile offenders as a condition of their probation or parole...

...It has been said that to interview Elizabeth Dole is to interrupt her, and Bush is even harder to steer off course (though he is far more spontaneous in his delivery...

...Bill Clinton is the perfect president for the entitlement society because he is willing to promise things he can't deliver...

...the woman who once famously accused his father of being "born with a silver foot in his mouth" portrayed her rival as a know-nothing spoiled rich kid...

...He goes in for another dig: "In order to be a good governor you have to solve problems in the framework of a set philosophy that does not vary...

...He's already met with each legislator individually to rally support...

...Local people will be responsible for seeing that their children get a quality education—no more excuses, no more blaming it on the TEA" (that's the Texas Education Association, the teachers' union that is a favorite conservative target...

...If we educate them, at least they can become more productive members of society...

...If he pulls this off, he's got a great issue to go around the country with and say, 'Hi, I'm the Governor of Texas who fixed this big, decades-old problem.' But if he lays this out and it doesn't happen, he's got a real problem on his hands...

...Pause...

...He's got to be artful about it, that's for sure...

...I had had enough...

...Actually, George W. may have enjoyed a perverse benefit from sharing his Christian name and surname with his father in his 1994 campaign...

...Maybe, but even if the tax plan crashes and burns, he's still got one quality other Republican governors who are being talked up for the presidency seem to lack...

...Let me put it to you that way...

...During the fifty years of my life I've seen the culture change," he says...

...He's got to manage this thing properly so he looks like a tax cutter and not a tax raiser," says one strategist close to Bush...

...I drive a cab...

...In addition to his official groomsman get-up of cream linen trousers, navy blazer, and flowered cotton tie, I recall that he wore Gucci loafers and was smoking an expensive cigar...

...Austin political consultant Bill Miller, who works for both Republicans and Democrats, predicts the Bush model of a short and to-the-point agenda will become a blueprint for governors nationwide if he proves as successful in the new legislative session as he was two years ago...

...No governor of Texas has been elected to a second four-year term (four-year terms were instituted in 1972...

...Nor does he sound like Pat Robertson when he says, "The ultimate success of a cultural shift is going to be a return to spirituality, because the truth of the matter is that Judeo-Christian values—a sense of responsibility, loving your neighbor, a sense of right and wrong, of decency and indecency—become a real part of life when people turn toward something higher than themselves...

...And a cynical population is a population that is incapable of solving problems...

...senator," he says...

...People argue that if we don't educate [immigrants] they'll go home, and that's not true...

...Children in the same grade are now allowed— encouraged, even—to read at different rates so that the better readers aren't held back...

...Bush asks...

...He vocally opposes California's Proposition 187, the 1994 initiative that sought to deny public services to undocumented immigrants, and lobbied against a Texas version of it...

...But that unfairly discounts Bush's ability to turn issues into concrete proposals and get them passed into law...

...This is good public policy...

...I would hope that he will do what I do, which is give it in every speech...

...And they have imposed new requirements of welfare recipients—children must be immunized and pregnant women must identify the father for benefits to flow...

...He was eight years out of Yale then and working in the oil business in Midland, Texas...

...I'm more entrepreneurial...

...Vision thing, anyone...

...Bush wants to create "one-stop service centers" for welfare recipients so that "the individual who needs help is no longer the passive recipient of a handout but the proactive holder of a voucher that empowers that individual to choose from a range of services...

...Bush says that while "we have to do a better job of enforcing our border," he will tolerate no "immigrant-bashing...

...He does willingly concede that "I am an obvious choice because I'm the governor of the second biggest state with a great political name...

...The desire to provide will never be squelched," he says...

...His father had just been elected to Congress, but that did not prevent George W. (who is not actually George II, but was erroneously known as "Junior" in the Bush White House) from behaving like a preppie scoundrel...

...This was, Bush says now, his rambunctious period, when he was "drinking and carousing and fumbling around...

...I understand why these people are here...

...Indeed I have...

...He keeps a low profile...

...I am a Texan and a westerner and a southerner...

...He won't even announce until the legislative session is over this summer whether he will seek reelection as governor...