Team Could Overwhelm Bush’s Agenda

This much can be said about George W. Bush’s Cabinet-in-Waiting: Its members will have more experience--both inside and outside of Washington--than those who advised any of his immediate predecessors. And it will be more diverse than the Cabinets of all the Republican presidents before him.

But it remains to be seen whether Bush--who characterizes himself as a seasoned manager coming to Washington to get things done--will be able to get that experience and diversity to work for him.

With a roster of nominees who run the ideological gamut from passionate conservative to pragmatic moderate, Bush’s administration could fall victim to internal conflicts and crusades that would stymie his ability to accomplish his goals.

“This Cabinet shows Bush is not afraid to have strong people around him, but it doesn’t tell us what that means,” said G. Calvin Mackenzie, a professor of government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, and a historian of presidencies. “Given the range of people that a Republican president might have chosen, it’s not a particularly conservative Cabinet. But it is a Cabinet that leaves a lot of things unknown--about where power will reside and whether the passions of one or more members will get all the attention.”

From Atty. Gen.-designate John Ashcroft, a fervent foe of abortion, to Labor secretary nominee Linda Chavez, a leading opponent of affirmative action, to prospective Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton, who worked for a pro-development legal foundation, Bush’s Cabinet will feature conservative activists who have been willing to make enemies in the pursuit of their ideals.

It also will be strikingly diverse, with four women, two African Americans, two Latinos, one Asian American and one Arab American. It will contain one Democrat--Transportation Secretary-designate Norman Y. Mineta--and several moderates, including affirmative action proponent Colin L. Powell as secretary of State and abortion-rights advocate Christine Todd Whitman at the Environmental Protection Agency.

With that kind of ideological diversity, Bush runs the risk that his Cabinet members could abandon his agenda in favor of their own, political analysts say.

As Texas governor, Bush developed a reputation for putting strong people in positions of authority and giving them the ability to set their own priorities and choose their own people. But that approach could undermine the agenda he sold to voters: That he will bring to Washington the ability to build coalitions and the executive experience to assemble a team to make government work.

Cabinet’s Power Harks Back to JFK, LBJ Eras

“You look at the strength of the Cabinet vis-a-vis the experience of the White House staff, and you really have a lot of power centered in the Cabinet. You really have to go back a long time, to Kennedy and Johnson, to find a Cabinet with that kind of managerial strength,” said Paul Light, director of the Presidential Appointee Initiative at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan public policy research organization in Washington. “It suggests that policy decisions are not going to be made at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. so much as in the Cabinet rooms.”

Norman Ornstein, who heads the Transition Project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, said Bush’s decision to place conservative firebrands in key Cabinet posts could work to his benefit in the long run.

Ornstein argues that Donald H. Rumsfeld, Bush’s pick to become Defense secretary, is more pragmatist than conservative on most issues, with one notable exception: missile defense, which the right wing cares about passionately.

While Norton, the Interior secretary-designate, is considered potentially confrontational on land-use policy, her preoccupation with that issue could give Bush more leeway to strike deals on other areas of environmental policy, Ornstein said.

Bush’s Administration a ‘Work in Progress’

“You may have a few areas of knock-down, drag-out conflict that expend a lot of political capital and get a lot of attention, but that in the process give Bush even more running room to work out accommodations in the broadest center between the Democrats and Republicans,” he said.

But, analysts cautioned, several key factors that will affect how the next administration operates remain unknown.

If Ashcroft is given broad discretion to choose conservatives to run the antitrust and civil rights divisions of the Justice Department, for example, the agency could become a conservative powerhouse. If Whitman is true to her reputation as an opponent of regulation, she could quickly undo Clinton administration policies favored by environmentalists.

“Obviously, at this point in the life of the administration, this is the only statement of how the president sees his administration,” Mackenzie said of Bush’s Cabinet nominations.

But over the coming year, Mackenzie said, Bush will name hundreds of second- and third-tier political appointees who will be less visible but will exercise significant power in policy formulation.

“So this is a work in progress,” Mackenzie said. “We need to keep our eyes open and see what comes down the road.”

Bush’s Cabinet Choices

President-elect George W. Bush completed his Cabinet nominations Tuesday, with three more choices. Here’s a look at the nominees, all of whom must be approved by the U.S. Senate:

Labor: LINDA CHAVEZ

53; former Reagan administration civil rights commissioner

Housing and Urban Development: MEL MARTINEZ

54; chairman of the Orange County, Fla., board of commissioners since 1998

Treasury: PAUL H. O’NEILL

65; chairman of Alcoa Corp. since 1987

State: COLIN L. POWELL

63; founder and chairman, America’s Promise, 3-year-old nonprofit organization for youth; Joint Chiefs of Staff head in Bush administration

Commerce: DON EVANS

54; chairman and CEO of Tom Brown Inc., a Denver-based oil and gas company; chairman of the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign

Agriculture: ANN M. VENEMAN

51; Attorney in private practice, in Sacramento, since 1999; former secretary of California Department of Food and Agriculture

Defense: DONALD H. RUMSFELD

68; Gilead Sciences Inc. chairman; former Defense secretary and White House chief of staff inFord adminis-tration, various positions in Nixon administration

Transportation: NORMAN Y. MINETA

69; Commerce secretary (D) under President Clinton

Health and Human Services: TOMMY G. THOMPSON

59; governor of Wisconsin (R)

Interior: GALE A. NORTON

46; private practice attorney; previously Colorado attorney general (R)

Attorney General: JOHN ASHCROFT

58; outgoing Missouri senator (R)

Energy: SPENCER ABRAHAM

48; outgoing Michigan senator (R)

Education: ROD PAIGE

67; Houston school superintendent

Veterans Affairs: ANTHONY J. PRINCIPI

56; president of QTC Medical Services Inc.; former acting VA secretary and first deputy aide under President Bush

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Sources: Staff reports; Associated Press