BUSH'S CHOICES DEFY TALK OF CONCILIATION

Cabinet Is Diverse but Not Politically

President-elect Bush is defying predictions of a bipartisan government
and instead is naming a Cabinet that is little different from one he
would have chosen if he had won a resounding victory, Bush advisers
said.

These advisers said Bush has determined that the best way to establish
his legitimacy despite his messy victory is to lead as if he had a
mandate. So he is nominating thoroughbred conservatives to his Cabinet
instead of appeasing Democrats with moderates, and is vowing to take
his campaign platform to Capitol Hill undiluted even though his allies
there are urging him to start with chewable bites.

"The feeling is that the country deserves governance and if you don't
assert the sovereignty and legitimacy of your administration from the
outset, you undermine your ability to achieve your goals later," an
adviser said. "A touchstone of the Bush governing style is
inclusiveness, but with a very strong philosophical compass."

Bush's approach has become increasingly bold since his address on Dec.
13, the night Vice President Gore conceded. Back then, Bush called on
the nation to "rise above a house divided," and added, "I was not
elected to serve one party, but to serve one nation."

Since then, all 12 of Bush's Cabinet selections have been Republicans.
Bush delighted the party's right wing with a string of nominations
that continued Friday with his selection of Gale A. Norton, a former
Colorado attorney general and ardent advocate of property rights, as
interior secretary. The week before, he nominated defeated Sen. John
D. Ashcroft (R-Mo.), one of the most vocal Christian conservatives in
public life, to succeed Janet Reno as attorney general.

"The journey from Reno to Ashcroft is a journey from utter darkness to
brilliant light," said Jerry L. Falwell, the founder of the Moral Majority.

The choices of Ashcroft and Norton stunned Democrats after Bush's
pledge that he planned a period of "reconciliation and unity."

Commentators had predicted that Bush, having lost the popular vote by
more than half a million and facing a tied Senate and a House with a
bare Republican majority, would move quickly to signal that he planned
to govern from the center. Thomas E. Mann, a Brookings Institution
scholar specializing in American governance, said that instead, Bush
has shown "no concession to the fragility of his victory."

"Given the Florida recount, the Ashcroft nomination is just
breathtaking," Mann said. "Democrats are going through the niceties of
the transition period, but beneath the surface is hostility and
disbelief that Bush is proceeding in this fashion."

Bush indicated last week that he has had trouble recruiting a big-name
Democrat. He joked that he is "not having trouble getting Democrats to
return my phone calls," but added that most of those he has consulted
"want to stay in place."

Bush advisers said Republican activists had rebelled at the idea of
offering one of the top Cabinet slots to the other party after
Republicans had spent eight years winning back the White House. And a
campaign official said Bush's efforts to woo current senators were
doomed aborning because of the 50-50 party split in the chamber.

Now the only slots left in the core Cabinet are the secretariats of
energy, labor and transportation, which a campaign official said will
make it all the harder for Bush to lure a Democrat from a lucrative
corporate or legal career. The president typically confers Cabinet
status on several other senior positions, including United Nations
ambassador and CIA director, which is where Bush may finally land his
Democrat, the official said.

Bush, who is spending New Year's weekend at his Texas ranch, plans to
be back in the announcement business as soon as Tuesday, when he
intends to begin a two-day economic summit in Austin. He said on
Thursday that he hopes to complete his Cabinet by the end of this week
but added, "Don't hold me to it."

Despite Democratic complaints about Ashcroft and Norton, some critics
have been mollified by his Cabinet's gravitas. Many of Bush's other
nominees, including Donald H. Rumsfeld for secretary of defense, held
lofty positions in earlier Republican administrations and seem certain
to be treated with deference because of their stature and their deep
personal relationships on Capitol Hill.

"The caliber of people that he has convinced to serve shows he is
interested in governing, not just making political statements," said
Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.).

Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said he does not believe
Ashcroft's nomination will hurt Bush. "We view this as a real chance
for bipartisanship to be displayed by the Senate, and we expect that
the Senate will proceed in a bipartisan fashion," he said.

Indeed, key Democratic senators said privately that barring a
startling revelation, Ashcroft should win swift confirmation in part
because of senators' tradition of approving their own.

Congressional aides said Norton, the nominee for interior secretary,
can expect the roughest time of any of the nominees designated so far.
Norton -- a protege of James Watt, who was President Ronald Reagan's
first interior secretary and was anathema to environmentalists -- has
advocated corporate self-policing over federal regulation of the wilds
in some cases.

Ashcroft and Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, the nominee for
secretary of health and human services, face opposition from women's
groups. Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League, called them "hard-line anti-choice
appointments."

"I thought President-elect Bush, having come through a very tortured
election, would have made nominations that are more tempered,"
Michelman said. "He has laid the gauntlet down on the two most
critical nominations when it comes to women's reproductive rights."

But Republicans said Bush's unexpectedly conservative nominations are
smart politics for several reasons.

"He's never going to please professional Washington Democrats, so it's
more important that he demonstrate a quiet competence than
bipartisanship," Republican strategist Roger Stone said.

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, said Bush "has
gotten 90 percent of the benefit" of nominating a Democrat simply by
demonstrating that he would seriously consider it. Norquist also
contends that a narrow victory "is an argument for maintaining your
strength with your base."

"You can't afford to lose any piece of the coalition as you attempt to
build on it," Norquist said. "In the '70s, Democrats had radical
feminists coming in the front door and Catholics going out the back
door. Bush cannot trade temporary allies for the alienation of
permanent allies."

Several people close to Bush said that although he would have worked
toward demographic diversity in his Cabinet under any circumstances,
they believe his narrow victory has resulted in even more selections
of women and minorities.

Only half of Bush's Cabinet nominees have been white males. He also
has nominated three women, two African American men and a Hispanic
man. He also has named an African American woman and a Hispanic man to
top positions on his White House staff -- Condoleezza Rice as national
security adviser and Alberto R. Gonzales for White House counsel.

In addition to his conservative nominations, Bush is maintaining his
devotion to the full tax cut of $1.3 trillion over nine years he
proposed during the campaign, even though his allies in Congress are
urging him to go first for smaller cuts, including elimination of the
estate tax and a reduction in the marriage penalty. Aides have left
the door open to that route by saying Bush also favors those measures.

Bush aides said he would also stick to the rest of his priorities,
which include adding a private component to Social Security, helping
parents move their children from failing schools, making prescription
drug coverage affordable to Medicare patients and modernizing the military.

"One of the things he has learned from watching his father and as
Texas governor is that the best way to get the best deal in a divided
government is to start out with your own agenda," an adviser said. "He
understands there's going to be compromise, but he wants to compromise
from a position of strength."

That time may not be far off. Congressional aides said that with House
Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) thirsting to become House
speaker after the 2002 elections, and with several senators planning
presidential campaigns in 2004, they see little incentive for
Democratic leaders to cooperate with Bush.

Bush's legislative strategy accounts for that by focusing on
individual senators and members so that he can bring along what he
calls "like-minded Democrats" on specific issues, regardless of the
leadership's stance. "There are sizable minorities of Democrats who
will vote with him on every one of his agenda items," an adviser said.

Fleischer offered an insight into Bush's approach when discussing
plans for the education summit that Bush held in Austin on Dec. 21 as
part of an effort to court rank-and-file Democratic moderates.
Fleischer said several Democrats declined to come to the summit -- but
at least they had been called.

"That creates goodwill," he said. "That is how he governed in Texas --
a very inclusive process, and he listens. He goes to those meetings
with a very concrete set of ideas that he wants to enact into law, and
he will press the case."