Republican Convention: How Bush Decided

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The Cheney choice demonstrates something else Bush learned as Governor of Texas: caution. He developed an aversion to taking political risks after his proposed 1997 overhaul of the state's property-tax law, a highly ambitious attempt to correct some ancient inequities in the system, ended in a revolt by G.O.P. legislators and business allies. Bush was able to salvage a tax cut from the fiasco, but he told TIME last fall that the experience taught him that "the status quo is really powerful. In times when there is not a crisis, it's hard to get people to act boldly." And Bush knows from watching his father what happens when a desire for boldness is applied to a vice-presidential pick. Two words: Dan Quayle.

If Republicans were happy with the choice, Democrats were ecstatic. Even before the announcement was made, they had researched Cheney's public record and were ready with a barrage of attacks over votes he had cast in Congress in the 1980s. But when reporters peppered Cheney with questions about those votes--against banning "cop-killer" bullets, against funding the Head Start program, against calling for the release of Nelson Mandela from prison--Cheney and the Bush campaign seemed caught off guard.

In his home state of Wyoming on the day after the announcement, Cheney hedged, pronouncing himself "generally proud" of his House votes, though he might like to "tweak" some in retrospect. Then the next morning he said he wouldn't make "any apologies for" his conservative record. When NBC's Matt Lauer asked him about his opposition to a gun-control measure that even the N.R.A. had supported, Cheney quipped, "Well, obviously I wasn't in the pocket of the N.R.A."

The rocky roll-out of Cheney's nomination suggested his selection had been so closely held by Bush that it had never been thoroughly vetted by the campaign. In fact, the only person to examine Cheney's personal and business affairs was Bush. A day after the announcement, campaign spokeswoman Karen Hughes said Bush was still reviewing the Cheney trail, a statement Bush later made a point of correcting. Even so, it was as if the Bush team expected Democrats and reporters to accept what Bush clearly took for granted as universally understood: that Cheney, by virtue of his role in the Gulf War, was a man of unassailable credentials.

No criticism of Bush's decision stung more than the suggestion that his father had made it for him. Campaign aides had been struggling over just how to handle the old man standing behind the dugout since before the primaries. They have tried to capitalize on the public's nostalgia for the former President without giving credence to the enemy position that the son is a mere stand-in for the father.