Bringing Evolution, Not Revolution
New White House Chief of Staff Defined by Efficiency Rather Than Ideology

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Joshua B. Bolten doesn't find it fun to say no. He once called himself a "softer person" than his predecessor as White House budget chief.

But he has found his own ways to make a point. He shows up at policy meetings with a giant calculator to add up the cost of anyone's ambitious ideas. And when someone strays off course, he throws a yellow penalty flag onto the conference table like a football referee.

Now it has fallen on this dry-witted Washington native to get the White House itself back on course. Tapped by President Bush yesterday to replace White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., Bolten will take over a political operation gone astray -- mired in an overseas war, stalled in its domestic agenda, sagging in the polls and alienated from congressional Republican allies.

Like Card, Bolten is a Bush loyalist, known as self-effacing and efficient, not especially ideological, not a promoter of his own agenda, a quiet professional in a town filled with vast egos. Yet this workaholic bachelor and self-described "policy geek" in glasses is the picture of contradictions. Bolten, 51, spends his few off-hours racing down the highway on his prized Harley-Davidson Fat Boy or bowling in the White House alley or banging out tunes in a rock band he named Deficit Attention Disorder.

His office in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House attests to his personality. Rather than stock it with pictures of Bush, as many aides do, Bolten hung a large portrait of Eisenhower in military uniform above the fireplace and put a Harley-Davidson book on the mantle. Nearby is a motorcycle menorah. Not one to take himself too seriously, Bolten even hung a drawing by a niece that a visitor recalled was titled "Uncle Josh's Poop Calendar."

"He is very funny, he always kept the staff laughing," said Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg, who worked for Bolten during the 2000 presidential campaign and Bush's first term. At the same time, she said, "Josh has a great moral core" and a passion for bold ideas. "If you had to pick one person who was the architect of all the big first-term domestic policy initiatives," it would be Bolten.

Karl Rove, Bush's political adviser, said Bolten will reinvigorate the White House.

"People get energized -- new leadership has a way of doing that," Rove said. "He has strong views, but he is very adept at not allowing them to short-circuit a robust policy process." Bolten encourages aides to propose ideas he disagrees with, Rove added. "He would challenge them to think outside the box."

Yet Bolten was hardly an outside-the-box choice. He is not the Washington graybeard many Republicans urged Bush to recruit. By most accounts, Bolten will bring evolution, not revolution. Within hours of his appointment, talking points distributed among Democrats described his selection as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

"He strikes me as pretty much cut from the same bolt as Andy Card, so I don't see this as a shift by the White House, replacing one insider with another," said Rep. John Spratt (S.C.), ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. But Spratt expressed "high regard" for Bolten: "He's bright, a quick study, yet cool and unflappable."

The son of a career CIA officer and a George Washington University teacher, Joshua Brewster Bolten grew up in Washington, attending public schools until enrolling at St. Albans for high school. After earning degrees at Princeton University and Stanford Law School, Bolten returned to Washington to work as a lawyer at the State Department and the Senate Finance Committee.

"He has this ethic of public service in his bones," said Daniel Price, a longtime friend.

Bolten joined the Bush team in 1989, working as general counsel of the U.S. trade representative and then as a White House lobbyist under President George H.W. Bush. He spent five years in London for Goldman Sachs International before being recruited at Christmas 1998 to go to Texas for the next Bush campaign. "I fell in love with the governor and the whole operation, the whole spirit of the operation," Bolten told C-SPAN last year.

Giving up the Goldman Sachs money, Bolten developed the campaign's policy platform, then helped enact it as deputy White House chief of staff in President Bush's first term. He was instrumental in pushing through tax cuts and the education plan known as No Child Left Behind. He also spearheaded a $15 billion plan to fight AIDS around the world, battling with Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., the director of the Office of Management and Budget, who objected to the cost.

When Daniels resigned in 2003, Bush tapped Bolten to take over OMB and the annual $2.8 trillion federal budget.

Bolten produced two consecutive budgets that cut discretionary, nonsecurity spending, but the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as soaring Medicare expenses have pumped up deficits.

Within the administration, Bolten earned a reputation as tight-fisted and more "overtly demanding" than Card, as one colleague put it, while making few enemies. "He's well-liked by all who know him, even if they don't agree with every decision that he makes," said former commerce secretary Donald L. Evans. "You can't help but say Josh Bolten is a fair and good man."

And Bolten repaired some relations on Capitol Hill frayed under Daniels, who was seen as less deferential to congressional egos. Bolten stroked the likes of Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), terming him the "Incredible Hulk" of lawmakers. Bolten "is respected as a straight shooter and good listener," said Rob Portman, a member of the House leadership before becoming U.S trade representative last year.

Bolten views himself as an honest broker and eschews public attention. "It's best that you keep yourself out of the equation," he told C-SPAN, "and in that way make sure that others have confidence that you're not running your own agenda -- you're just running the president's agenda, which was my objective. Still is."

Still, he will not bring fresh legs to the assignment. Many Republicans around Washington attributed at least some of Bush's political problems to a tired White House staff that has remained largely intact since the beginning of his presidency. Card served longer than any other chief of staff in half a century.

Bolten has been with Bush since the start, as well, working as many if not more hours than Card. Although he gets into the office later than Card, just in time for the 7:30 a.m. senior staff meeting, Bolten is regularly seen at the office until 10 or 11 at night before climbing into his 12-year-old Ford pickup to drive home. (After long resistance, Bolten recently accepted the car and driver service entitled to high-ranking White House officials, according to colleagues.)

Nonetheless, some believe Bolten offers enough change to make a difference. "It's a significant change because he brings a different skill set than Andy did," said Cesar Conda, a former aide to Vice President Cheney. "Josh will bring some energy to the policymaking apparatus at the White House. And he'll bring good relations with the Hill."