An e-mail:

I’ve been watching W since I was living in Texas for his first five years as governor, and I would add a caveat to Mario’s comments that he always tries to do the right thing rather than the popular thing. Mario is certainly correct in the “big things” – the three things that he uses as a cornerstone of his campaign, issues with a strong moral component, big problems facing the state or country where he has strong feelings that one approach is right and others are wrong. But he doesn’t fight for the “little stuff.” He’ll sign stuff like McCain-Feingold that he opposed or let Congress fill in the details of major bills subject only to the broadest of parameters, even if its Ted Kennedy doing the drafting. I’m not sure whether this is a political strategy to save capital for “big” issues, a belief that the proper role of the executive is to lead on big issues and leave smaller ones to the legislature or agencies, or just a governing style that focuses on what he regards are the most important issues and maybe never really gets deeply into the smaller ones.