FROM THE PUBLISHER Governor Ho-Hum

GIVE GEORGE W. BUSH THE CREDIT HE deserves. All he has to do is keep his nose clean, his zipper zipped, and his shirt tucked in, and he will coast to a second term and become heir apparent to the GOP presidential nomination. Anybody who doubts that the strategy will work only has to recall how his father became President of the United States. About the only change I expect to see in the governor’s modus operandi is a suddenly developed passion for pork rinds.

Media pundits tend to dwell on the great divide in the Republican Party between social conservatives and economic libertarians. There’s no doubt the division exists, but it masks a subtler and more important divide: the one between status-quo, do-nothing Republicans and activist, reform-minded Republicans. The first divide is easily bridged: oppose abortion and support tax cuts, and you’re pretty much home free. The second divide is a little more nettlesome. To cross it requires that you actually do something, and as we all know, doing something means offending somebody somewhere. That’s not how Dad got elected president.

But Dad was a vice president, and the vice presidency is a great place for doing nothing; in fact, doing nothing is the Constitutional job description, George W. is a governor, and that’s a whole different kettle of pork rinds.

What’s George W. running on, other than the indisputable fact that he’s a good guy? I called his Austin campaign headquarters and asked for a copy of his gubernatorial platform for the next term. I received a one-page statement that was very well-written as such statements go, in that it said very little. The governor wants lower taxes for small businesses, an end to social promotion, more money for “intervention programs,” more money for child care, more money for probation officers, detention of juveniles with guns, and one or two other good things. Tinkering at the margins is the specialty of status-quo Republicans.

Bush supporters will object to my characterizing the governor as another status-quo Republican. They will cite his property tax reform initiative as an example of his courage and his vision. The governor did have a successful first term, even if he failed on his major proposal. But that was before he got the presidential gleam in his eye. Now his ambitions seem to be reduced to a laundry list.

Midway through the senior Bush’s presidency I was invited with others to a White House briefing by chief of staff John Sununu. Sitting around a table in the Roosevelt Room, we listened in dumb amazement as he proudly ticked off a list of “accomplishments” of the Bush Administration. Forgive me if I can’t now recall a single item on Sununu’s list; I couldn’t recall one 30 minutes after the meeting ended. The only thing I do remember is another journalist shaking his head as we left the building, saying, “These guys are going to get creamed.”

The sins of the father, we are admonished, should not be visited upon the son. Perhaps George W. has learned from his father’s success that one gets elected by saying and doing nothing. Perhaps he has also learned from his father’s failure. Voters are left to guess or to hope that he actually has bold ideas and that in his second term, or whatever portion he serves of it, the governor will not shy away from scary words like “Robin Hood” or “school vouchers” or “eliminating bureaucracy.”

My question is: How are we to know?