Conservative think tanks were awaiting moment in the sun with a Bush regime

It's noon in the American Enterprise Institute's 12th-floor dining room, where Irving Kristol, Norman Ornstein and other luminaries…

It's noon in the American Enterprise Institute's 12th-floor dining room, where Irving Kristol, Norman Ornstein and other luminaries lunch. On the menu is swordfish and white wine. On the agenda is a Bush transition.

If George W. Bush becomes president, says the AEI scholar Douglas Besharov, gesturing to the dining room, "this whole place empties out".

For the first time since Ronald Reagan swept to power, conservative think tanks have the prospect of a wholly new administration to serve as a vehicle for their scholars and their ideas.

There's AEI trustee Dick Cheney, who would be George Bush's vice-president. There's Cheney's wife, Lynne, an AEI education specialist. There's Lawrence Lindsey, Mr Bush's principal economic adviser and a likely top Bush appointee. Christopher DeMuth, AEI's president, is being mentioned as Environmental Protection Agency chief. AEI's Richard Perle, a foreign policy adviser to Mr Bush, is being mentioned for a high-level job. AEI's Carolyn Weaver, another Bush adviser, may have a role in Social Security reform. John Bolton, in charge of the Bush legal team in Palm Beach County, is mentioned for deputy secretary of state. "It's the White House north, the White House annex," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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Hudson and other conservative think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and, particularly, Stanford University's Hoover Institution, all hope for a moment in the sun. But among this group of tax-exempt research organisations, AEI, because of its Cheney and Lindsey ties, is in the spotlight.

"American Enterprise, just a moment . . . American Enterprise, hold on," says the receptionist Doris Gibson. She repeats this five more times to calm the switchboard.

"It's been like this all morning," she says. Why? Keep listening. "Mrs Cheney is not in the office, but I can transfer you to her assistant," she tells one caller.

All the conservative think tanks share a hope that Mr Bush will draw from their ideological ranks rather than call on non-dogmatic moderates, whom his father favoured.

Hoover, founded in 1919 by the future president, sent an army of advisers to Washington for President Reagan. Now, it's a bastion of the grey-haired old guard: economist Michael Boskin, political thinker Martin Anderson, former secretary of state George P. Shultz.

But it has many prospects for a new Bush administration: Condoleezza Rice is considered a likely national security adviser. John Cogan is a top prospect for the Office of Management and Budget, and John Taylor might chair the Council of Economic Advisers. Eric Hanushek has advised the Bush campaign on education.

Among Heritage's possible placements in a Bush administration are the former Peace Corps director Elaine Chao, discussed as an energy secretary or other cabinet-level appointment; Kay James, who could head the Department of Health and Human Services or a sub-cabinet agency; Stuart Butler, who could wind up at HUD; and Kim Holmes, a foreign policy analyst. Nina Rees, who has advised Mr Bush on education, may wind up in the White House, and Becky Dunlop is a possible policy adviser.

While Heritage's orthodoxy, activism and social conservatism matched the Reagan administration well, Mr Bush's new-look conservatism is a better match for the free-market slant of AEI, a centre-right counterpart to the centre-left Brookings Institution. Even the president of Heritage, Edwin J. Feulner, sees a "natural affinity" between Mr Bush and AEI.