Inside The Mind Of George W. Bush

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Maybe it would have been, had that been the end of the story. But three weeks later, Bush submitted a budget to Congress that fell short of what Democrats claimed he had promised them for schools. All told, complains Senator Ted Kennedy, the driving force on education issues among the Democrats, Bush has shortchanged No Child Left Behind to the tune of $26 billion. "President Bush is personable, he's engaging, and he has very strong political skills," Kennedy says, all of which just made it worse for Democrats when they concluded they had been had. "They've effectively abandoned school reform," says Kennedy. Senator Clinton believes that on issue after issue, Bush was mainly concerned with uniting people who agreed with him. She summarizes his attitude this way: "I know what I know, and what I know is right. You just all fall in line, and we'll be fine."

But anyone expecting that Bush was going to stock his Cabinet with centrists and create a national unity government did not understand how he viewed the landscape. He told TIME in December 2000 that he believed he had won a mandate. In any case, says Calio, "The idea was to move quickly and start tucking accomplishments under the belt, so that you would refute the notion that there was no mandate and that nothing could be accomplished."

Democrats remember the week before Bush was sworn in--the crisp but friendly meetings with lawmakers from both parties, the kind for which Bush had been famous when he was Governor of Texas. Republican Senate leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert were quickly treated to a heavy courtship, but Democrats were also promised a place in the partnership. Bush assured minority leader Dick Gephardt, "I'll tell you what I think, and I hope you'll do the same with me." Gephardt thought Bush would be good to his word and couldn't help liking the guy.

But even as both sides settled into the legislative agenda, the White House was moving quickly on other fronts. Within the first few months the Administration helped strike down workplace-safety regulations, tried to make it harder for people to declare bankruptcy, froze stricter regulations governing road building in wilderness areas and arsenic pollution, and rejected the Kyoto global-warming treaty over the objections of Bush's own EPA chief, Christie Whitman. Democrats were appalled by what they saw as a hard right turn. The Bushies suggest that Democrats just got mad at being outmaneuvered. "Democrats think he's not nearly as smart as they are," says Calio. "Then he sets out and makes friends, and that catches them off guard and ticks people off. Then he starts getting things done, and this guy who is not as smart as I am is kicking my butt."