ASHINGTON - It's Dick Cheney. Or it certainly seems to be. But, in a way, the specific identity of Governor George W. Bush's choice as a running mate may not be as significant as the way he was chosen.
Indeed, the important thing may be that in the first presidential-level decision Bush was forced to make, he relied heavily upon the advice of people with ties to his family and assembled a field of finalists drawn entirely from the Republican establishment.
That is a reflection of Bush's own temperament and his aides' assessment of his campaign needs.
The selection of a running mate is many things - an effort to provide geographical balance, for example, or to shore up support among an important element of the electorate - but above all it is a candidate's evaluation of his own vulnerabilities. And in coming up with a list of finalists that is essentially a group of GOP elders, Bush reveals his own analysis.
In whittling down the contenders to former defense secretary Richard B. Cheney of Wyoming and former senator John C. Danforth of Missouri (along, of course, with the perennial hope that retired General Colin L. Powell will enlist in the political ranks), Bush signaled a recognition that he needs the help of an experienced hand, he needs to buttress his team's foreign-policy profile, and he needs to assure the public his administration would have the heft required to attack any diplomatic and domestic challenges that could face the country in the next four years.
Team players
The Bush team already is quietly asking top GOP operatives if they are willing to join the Cheney team - tellingly, the phrase they use is the ''Cheney team,'' not ''the vice-presidential team'' - so Cheney remained the front-runner in the final hours. But the final hours in these sorts of derbies are dangerous and unpredictable.
And yet the arguments the Bush campaign is using to describe Cheney are identical to the ones that would apply to Danforth:
He's mature. He's experienced. He's wise. His personality would give the country great comfort. He could be instantly embraced as a plausible president. He's dependable.
Indeed, as Bush rode his van through the dark, cold countryside of New Hampshire in the nights leading up to the February primary, he gave intimates the contours of his idea of the perfect running mate: I'll pick somebody I know, somebody I like, and someone I think will be loyal.
He has stuck to his guns. But he has also shown the voters how his mind and his heart work. In a pinch, he goes for the familiar. In the end, he embraces the establishment.
That is not a small thing. Until recently, the Republican Party was a proxy for the establishment. It personified established interests and protected them. It also behaved as the establishment would want it to, respecting hierarchies and rewarding experience.
And then, beginning with Ronald W. Reagan and accelerating under the leadership of former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Republicans went to war against their own interests and instincts. They assailed the status quo. They ridiculed the old ways.
A new order
No more. George W. Bush's Republicans are a post-revolutionary party. They respect experience. They cultivate the elders. They talk about the new, bright future, but in doing so they do not disparage the past. The Republican rebels of the past several years sought confrontation. The Republican ranks of today seek comfort.
Cheney and Danforth are two figures redolent of an old Washington virtue, disparaged during the Gingrich rebellion but apparently still alive and breathing: competence. They are partisans, to be sure; Cheney was in the House GOP leadership and was on the road to becoming speaker, Danforth was a committee chairman in the Senate and no conscientious objector to party warfare. But both have the respect of Democrats and Republicans. Indeed, the word that best applies to both of them is respectable.
Neither is, at this stage of life, ambitious for himself. Neither is, by temperament, a publicity hog. Neither is, by inclination, an insurrectionary. Neither is, by virtue of age, a threat to any presidential hopes Governor Jeb Bush of Florida might harbor for 2004 if his brother loses or for 2008 if his brother wins.
And the Bush choice also underscores an element the Texas governor is sure to emphasize today: the Republican vice-presidential nominee will be someone almost above politics, selected less for what he would do for the ticket in November, and more for what he could do for the country in January. That, in the end, is what an establishment is for.
