Word: democratic
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...trial lawyer Bush never took on is Paul Sadler, a soft-spoken litigator from East Texas who is also the lege's leading wonk. As chairman of the house's public-education committee, the Democrat is a longtime player on the issue closest to Bush's heart, education reform, which had been under way in Texas for a decade by the time Bush ran. In 1993, Sadler led the fight to scrap the state's education code, and during Bush's first term, Sadler and others were writing the new code. Sadler says Bush jumped into the reform effort immediately...
...more forgiving, with three-year time limits and provisions that the able-bodied must work. It also extended the child-health-insurance program to 200,000 more children. "In my experience, when given a choice between compassion and noncompassion, Bush invariably takes the noncompassionate path," says Elliott Naishtat, a Democrat who chairs the powerful house committee on human services, which handled the welfare bills. "Punishing the kids to get the mom to cooperate is not acceptable and not compassionate. You don't have to do it that...
Naishtat and other Democrats believe that the harshness of Bush's positions sprang from his concern for winning Republican presidential primaries. "He did not want to leave himself open to attack on the right by appearing lenient," says Naishtat. House Democrat Glen Maxey remembers a day at the end of the 1999 session when Bush was pumping hard for his full-family-sanctions bill. Maxey and Naishtat were in the members' lounge when Bush aide Terral Smith walked in. "He sat down between us and said, 'We need y'all to have a meeting today to vote'" on the bill...
...with a reporter. In return for letting his guard down, Bush expects not to see his candor used against him. Fair enough. As for South Carolina, where this week's primary may decide his fate, Bush seemed genuinely confident. "You can't win the Republican primary sounding like a Democrat," he said of McCain as he squinted into the sun. "Not in this state...
...Bush stands out for his unblinking certainty, he is not alone in his enthusiasm for the death penalty. In the midst of soaring crime rates, squishy judges and lenient parole boards, politicians tripped over themselves to embrace capital punishment after the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. An Old Democrat could become a New Democrat by switching positions. Hillary Clinton recently showed her anticrime credentials by coming out for it in her Senate race...