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Is a president who has never vetoed a bill weak or strong? Does he get his way with veto threats, followed by fear-tinged negotiations? Is it Congress or the White House that does the compromising?

In a spooky footnote to Bush family history, both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush may have each met their executive limits against controversial consumer issues under the authority of the Federal Communications Commission.

For Bush 41, it was his opposition to a cable rate-relief bill favored by consumers that ended his perfect streak of 35 sustained vetoes one month before his defeat in November 1992. The White House furiously lobbied Republicans to support their president in a Congress dominated by the opposing party, but at the time, both Bush and the cable companies were declining in public esteem, and lawmakers easily rebuffed Bush's disapproval.

Bush 43 has a different streak to protect. In the president's world last week, Democrats in the Senate, with some prominent help from renegade Republican colleagues, defied his threat to use his first-ever veto against the Senate's rejection of new FCC regulations, rules that would invite large media companies to expand their market dominance. It is another communications controversy with noteworthy consumer opposition - this time pitting the president against defecting members of his majority party.

Bush's winning streak after nearly three years in office is one of never using his veto pen (though issuing veto threats at least 50 times on legislation since 2001, according to an Office of Management and Budget tally). That fact is well understood by senators determined to thwart the new FCC regulations backed by the president. Sponsors in the Senate - Democrat Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and former GOP Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi - have warned Bush publicly that he does not want to flex his first veto against the Senate's will to rein in media conglomerates.

Other legislative observers who support the president agree privately that the FCC regulations may not rise to the level of meriting a splashy first veto - particularly for a president seen by some as too cozy with corporate America at a time when his re-election demands that he connect with average workers worried about keeping or finding jobs.

Bush may be saved from testing the strength of a veto this time if House Republican leaders follow through on their promise to let the Senate resolution die from inaction on the House calendar. The president can holster his veto pen for another day and return to wielding his executive threats. These proved effective in shaping bills when Democrats narrowly held the Senate, and have remained useful since Republicans assumed control of both houses of Congress.

Bush's veto-less record thus far does not surprise his first White House lobbyist, Nicholas E. Calio, who held the same post in 1992 when the cable bill became a headline defeat for George H.W. Bush. The present House leadership "committed among themselves early on that they would not allow a bill to go to the president that had to be vetoed," Calio said in an interview, recalling a pledge voluntarily offered to this Bush White House by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. "It's a real principle with the speaker and DeLay," Calio added. "They have done a remarkable job."

Hastert spokesman John Feehery confirmed that his boss believes legislation that invites a presidential veto is a sign of "a breakdown in the system; there's been a failure to get a bill that the president can sign. Sometimes you do that when you're trying to make political points. But we don't want to make political points with this president, because we agree with him on almost everything," he said.

"There are a lot of examples in appropriations bills," Feehery continued. "We work really hard, and a lot of conservatives say, 'Why don't you send the bill down so the president will veto it?' And we would rather just not send the bills down. Last year, that's why we didn't send a big omnibus bill down to the White House, just to get it vetoed, and frankly that's why we didn't get the appropriations bills done until when the Republicans took over the majority last year. We basically waited the Senate out." (The GOP leaders did not come upon that strategy alone: The White House freely advises lawmakers which legislation Bush wishes to receive, stall, or defeat.)

Feehery said the only bill that Hastert would have wanted Bush to veto was the campaign finance reform law, which the president felt politically compelled to sign - with no cameras or audience present - in early 2002. "That's the only time we sent him a bill we didn't like," the speaker's aide said.

With Republicans in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, confrontation in the form of a veto would be an embarrassment, particularly for a president who promised both to change the tone in Washington and to "get things done."

Bush's record of not using his veto is not a sign of compromising too much, or meekly accepting legislation, but a sign of executive strength, argued Calio: "Look at the record. Run a list of legislation that's passed. Just put the major stuff in there," he said, without offering a rundown. "I think it underscores undeniable strength. And I think making your principles known - what's acceptable and not acceptable - and working with your allies on Capitol Hill to produce legislation you can sign is a source and sign of strength. And not getting bills that you have to veto underscores that strength."

True, say academics who have written about the presidential veto. But it is also the case that Congress is passing fewer bills than it once did, and approving more omnibus bills that presidents are forced to accept; and that Congress is more narrowly divided, making it more likely that presidents of either party resort to talking tough and then collaborating behind the scenes if they want to sign anything. "President Ford had the most vetoes on an annual basis, and by far the most overrides," added University of New Orleans political scientist Steven A. Shull, who has studied the significance of vetoes. "Ford was clearly vulnerable, immediately after becoming president. Only about 7 percent of vetoes are overridden."

Presidents enjoy stronger sway with Congress when they see eye-to-eye with its leadership, and on that question, Bush has an advantage. Hastert and DeLay are loyal lieutenants, and the White House anointed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as Lott's successor. Presidential skill would not be enough if congressional leaders saw their own ambitions as distinct from the president's, suggested Fordham University political scientist Richard Fleisher, author of "The President in the Legislative Arena."

In Bush's case, his zero-veto record - as a badge of strength - may be one the White House aims to safeguard right up until Election Day. "I can't imagine he'd want a veto," Fleisher said. "He campaigned in 2000 as the great healer. The fact that he didn't issue a single veto could be used as an argument to illustrate how much a facilitator he is - a compromiser."

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