Candidate Bush described himself repeatedly as a compassionate conservative. The president is what he said - a conservative with some traits we do not normally associate with that breed of politician. When conservatives took over Congress in 1995, they tried to abolish the Department of Education.
Many conservatives are hostile to immigration.
Bush welcomes immigrants and sees them as a source of economic and social vitality. In those respects, he is more compassionate than many other conservatives. But he is solidly conservative in his basic economic views and as uncompromising in his opposition to most liberal programs as Reagan ever was. As the new president kept reminding us, he is not his father. The elder George Bush grew up as a classic Eisenhower-Rockefeller Republican.