A useful case study: the environment. Before the 1994 election, Mr. Bush supported a state constitutional amendment, also backed by big corporations, to compensate landowners hurt by conservation efforts. He held out the prospect of cutting funds for a major program to purchase environmentally fragile lands and declared that “excessive regulation does not mean we are going to improve the quality of water, air or land-use planning.”
Allison DeFoor, who was a top environmental adviser to Mr. Bush when he became governor, said bluntly, “He was hostile to the environment in 1994.”
But Mr. Bush was open to arguments from the other side. He met with conservation experts and toured important environmental sites across Florida. When he was elected four years later, “his heart changed,” Mr. DeFoor said.
As governor, Mr. Bush invested heavily in a plan to restore the Everglades, eroded over time by development and agriculture. He called the wetlands “a treasure” and kept a toy version of a manatee, an endangered aquatic mammal, on his desk.
Mr. Bush “does not flip-flop,” Mr. DeFoor said. “He learns. When he learns, he changes.”
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