Editorial: Plenty to keep new President busy

How does an ordinary man contemplate the fact that he will soon be President of the United States? George W. Bush campaigned as a conspicuously ordinary man, making the most of his folksiness and the fact that, with only two terms as Texas Governor behind him, he was a relative novice in politics.

In fact, profiles of him during the campaign suggested he was not much interested in politics at all, preferring to talk baseball, a previous professional interest. He made little effort in the broadcast debates to match his rival, Al Gore, on command of foreign policy or even the finer points of his own manifesto. He offered mainly a convincing innocence of Washington and its ways, a distrust of government and faith in his "ordinary folks."

But for all that, he seemed to have an open mind, a willingness to learn and deference to advice. So much so, that the main worry about him is that he will delegate too much to advisers whose decisions are not disciplined by electoral implications as a President's would be. But let's credit him with conscientious intentions to master all the briefs he will need to do the job well.

He will quickly find that "globalisation" is more than a mantra of the State Department. It is a technological fact presenting the world with even richer potential if good rules are agreed. And he will realise that the most powerful voice in setting the rules is his. He is said to believe in free trade, which gives hope that he might reinvigorate steps towards a new round of general liberalisation under the principles of the World Trade Organisation.

He may be less anxious, as an oilman, to revive international environmental talks on global warming which collapsed only last month. But now that Europeans know who has won the American presidency, they may be more conciliatory than they were at the Hague.

As the new Commander-in-Chief contemplates his immense military force, he promises to be less prepared than President Clinton has been to risk American lives in conflicts where US national interest is not directly at stake. That would be a pity. He will have the example of his father in the Gulf War, and probably some of the same people, to guide interventions abroad.

At home, President Bush II will be severely restricted by the circumstances of his election, an evenly divided Senate and a need to appeal across partisan lines. He has the personality to do it, but probably at the cost of a few favourite policies, such as school vouchers, opposition to positive discrimination and perhaps his general tax cuts.

He might even by induced to take a more responsible attitude to gun control, if not to the death penalty which, it is said, he exercised with too much alacrity in Texas. But the most effective step he might take across partisan lines would be to tighten the rules on political campaign contributions. And his first step when he is inaugurated next month ought to be to commission some sort of improvement of voting machinery.

But in the last task he will be constrained by the same constitutional rule that, in the end, got him elected. Election procedures are set by state legislatures and there is not much any branch of the federal Government can do, except through its influence on public opinion.

In the weeks remaining before he takes office, Mr Bush will need to appoint a cabinet. Of main interest will be his economic and budget advisers. It might be too much to hope that he will invite President Clinton's Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, to stay on. But Mr Bush will be anxious not run any risk that he presides over the collapse of the long Clinton boom.

For someone who by all accounts made a leisurely job of his previous position in public life, things are about to get busy.

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