Man In Charge

By JAMES CARNEY AND JOHN F. DICKERSON

In his first television interview as George W. Bush's running mate last July, Dick Cheney had to endure a prime-time grilling. Larry King wanted to know if voters should worry about his history of heart attacks, and gave his conservative voting record in Congress a thorough going-over. A disabled vet called in to make a crack about his lack of military service. Watching from the Texas Governor's mansion, Bush wasn't fazed. He turned to an aide and said, "Mark my words. Dick Cheney is the type of man you want around when a crisis develops."

Bush didn't have to wait long for his prediction to come true. Getting to the office turned out to be crisis enough. And Cheney is not only around, he is also ubiquitous. Even a minor heart attack, his fourth in 22 years, barely slowed him down. While Bush spent another week holed up at his remote ranch in Crawford, Texas, his No. 2 matched Al Gore in the battle for public opinion, briefing reporters, sitting for round after round of television interviews, directing the transition.

Bush couldn't risk being seen as a man presumptuously grasping at the Oval Office, so he relied on Cheney's aura of authority and competence to persuade Americans that the race was finally over and Gore should give up. "A lot of you wrote stories back in July that Cheney was a dumb pick," says Ron Kaufman, a G.O.P. consultant who worked in Bush's father's White House. "He sure doesn't look like a dumb pick now, does he?"

What he looks like is a man in charge. Cheney's reputation in Washington--whether as Gerald Ford's chief of staff, a Congressman or Defense Secretary under President Bush--has always been that of the ideal lieutenant: loyal, competent and self-effacing. His Secret Service code name under Ford, "Backseat," reflected his deferential style. But Cheney is currently playing such a high-profile role for Bush that lately he has been overshadowing his boss. In the first crazy 36 hours after election night, it was Cheney, not Bush, who made the key decision to ask his old colleague James Baker to head Bush's Florida legal team. And in taking to the airwaves as spokesman and transition director, Cheney has been so clearly in command that Republicans don't know whether to be cheered or worried. "We have to keep Dick Cheney healthy," goes a joke making its way around G.O.P. circles in Washington. "Otherwise it will be the first time in history that the No. 1 will have to take over."

If Bush does become President, Cheney will almost certainly have the most substantial portfolio of any Vice President in history--bigger even than Gore's. Bush's propensity to delegate authority, his confidence in Cheney and the sheer breadth of his running mate's experience help ensure that Cheney would have a leading role in everything from staffing and running the White House and federal agencies to directing foreign and defense policy to negotiating with Congress. And the 50-50 split between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate would turn the Vice President's largely ceremonial role as president of the upper chamber into something far more serious, summoning Cheney to Capitol Hill for every important vote in case he's needed to break a tie. Last week even Bush's syntax reinforced the idea that Cheney was in charge. "One of these days all this is going to stop," Bush said of the Florida legal battles, "and Dick Cheney and I will be the President and Vice President."

Bush dismisses the idea that he's lost in the shadows. When a reporter at the ranch questioned him on the point, Bush looked across his cattle fence and said, "That's pretty humorous," then gave an exasperated laugh. "Bush doesn't play that game," says Ed Gillespie, a Bush campaign adviser, referring to the political sport of judging who's up and who's down. "Washington pundits and the media engage in that. Bush himself doesn't." Though Bush was famous for being a tireless loyalty cop in his father's Administration--checking to see who was getting too far above his or her station, upbraiding those who stepped out of line--he is not threatened by Cheney's ascendancy, say friends, but comforted by it. The more Cheney excels, the more it validates the biggest decision Bush has made in this campaign.

Hiding behind surrogates was not a luxury Gore could afford last week. Fearful that Florida's certification of Bush's victory would erode public support and kill his chances, the Vice President waged a broad offensive on national television, all but pleading with viewers to wait patiently for "every vote to be counted." Bush aides and other Republicans derided Gore's TV blitz as an "act of desperation," but the Vice President had little alternative. "Without Gore out there every day, the whole week was going to be about George Bush's ascendancy," laments a top Gore adviser. Says another: "If you don't show yourself, people assume you're in the bunker."

But Gore really was in a bunker last week--a bunker of the mind, as he chewed over each scrap of news with top aides and family members inside the vice-presidential residence. Firmly convinced that he won Florida--yet unable to prove it--and with little else to do, Gore and his team looked to every new development, however insubstantial, for a sign of hope. The Vice President is said to be increasingly outraged by allegations, so far unproved, that implicate Florida Republicans in a coordinated effort to suppress the state's African-American vote. In an interview last week, Gore insisted he doesn't lie awake at night plagued by what-ifs (if he had carried his home state of Tennessee, for example, he'd have won the White House without Florida). And members of Gore's inner circle insist the Vice President remains upbeat despite his gradually diminishing chances. But not even his most determined supporters were likely to agree when Gore put the odds that he'll become President at "fifty-fifty." Says an aide: "We're all hopeful. But Gore may be a little more optimistic than the rest of us."

Which may explain the latest bit of spin coming from Democrats, including the current President. Bill Clinton was among those arguing last week that even if Bush prevails in court and takes office without a hand count of the disputed ballots in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, journalists and advocates will soon be able to do the counting themselves. The result, they say, would be a Bush Administration, already struggling to unite the country, tainted by ballot counts proving that Bush really did lose Florida. "There will be hell to pay," predicts a vengeful Gore adviser.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Bush wasn't just clearing brush or watching Cheney on TV. Each morning the Governor joined a conference call with Baker and campaign chairman Don Evans, his two top lieutenants in Tallahassee, and Cheney, who set up a makeshift transition office in his home in McLean, Va. Cheney and two aides sat around the table in the kitchen nook, supplementing the house's two phone lines with as many as six different cellular units. Late last week Cheney moved the transition team to roomier quarters down the road--20,000 sq. ft. of office space, fully wired, recently vacated by a dotcom incubator firm.

Bush chose last week to launch the inevitable charm offensive. He dialed up Democratic Senator John Breaux, a moderate from Louisiana, to chat about Breaux's favorite subject, Medicare reform. Mostly he spoke with Republicans, including G.O.P. congressional leaders and others on the Hill who have jurisdiction over education, an area the Texas Governor promised to make his first priority. He asked Michigan Congressman Pete Hoekstra for a list of Democrats he could work with as President. In a conversation between Delaware's Mike Castle and Bush, the two didn't just exchange pleasantries but also focused on specific legislation, like the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Bush told Castle and others that the G.O.P.'s slim majorities in Congress meant he would have to start working as soon as possible on the compromises that would be inevitable if he was to have any chance of turning his education agenda into law. "He was asking me questions about stuff that I wouldn't think a President would be focused on until the swearing-in," said a Congressman Bush phoned. How are we going to get this stuff done quickly? Bush asked. Can we work with that Democrat? What's his personality like?

When he was not on the phone, Bush spent much of last week with his prospective chief of staff, Andy Card, a Bush-family favorite who was the old man's deputy chief of staff and Transportation Secretary. The two discussed the structure of the White House staff, chopped cedar--the kind of informal, outdoorsy moment that's very much a part of the Bush style--and sifted through lists of possible Cabinet selections. Chief among them: Colin Powell, the unofficial choice for Secretary of State, who went to the dusty ranch last week not so much to be vetted as to be displayed. Powell didn't object to the photo op but was reluctant, with the election still unresolved, to have his appointment announced. Bush received Senate majority leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Saturday for more pictures of unity and talks on how they would get anything accomplished in a nearly evenly divided Congress.

Bush's team has a familiar look about it. Card, Cheney, Powell and Condoleezza Rice--who could be named as the choice for National Security Adviser as soon as next week--all served in the first Bush presidency. Though Cheney brushed off any suggestions that the new boss would field the same team as the old boss, his hyperbole was more defensive than accurate. "You might as well say we're overreliant on the Ford Administration," said Cheney in defense of the mounting number of Bush veterans being plucked.

Aides say the Governor wants to overcome the perception that he is simply reactivating the White House security passes of his father's old crew--and that he has bigger reasons for doing so than mere appearance. Bush is devoted to creating a diverse Administration because he has pledged to change the face of the Republican Party. Having reached out to minorities during his campaign, Bush hopes to continue doing so with high-profile appointments to his Administration. Powell and Rice would be the two most highly placed African Americans ever in an Administration. Hispanic Congressman Henry Bonilla and Texas railroad commissioner Tony Garza are close to Bush and are under consideration for positions. With such a narrow electoral mandate and itty-bitty margins of power in the House and Senate, Bush knows that such appointments would help curry favor with constituencies, which could be crucial to legislative success.

Whatever the composition of the final Bush team, Cheney would be its anchor. When healthy, he sends enormously reassuring signals to Republicans, the nation and overseas. He is known from Keokuk to Kathmandu. That is not yet true of the man poised to be his boss, and it would take some growth in Washington for Bush to make up the deficit. The first step will be for Bush to put his hand on the Bible in January and finally take office. Now it's up to Cheney to help get him there.

--With reporting by Michael Duffy, Tamala M. Edwards, Karen Tumulty and Douglas Waller/Washington

With reporting by Michael Duffy, Tamala M. Edwards, Karen Tumulty and Douglas Waller/Washington