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Ari Fleischer, chief spokesman for the presidential campaign of George W. Bush, has been with the Texas governor just about every day since signing onto the campaign in November.

The 39-year-old Westchester, N.Y., native is a veteran of political campaigns. He was communications director for Elizabeth Dole’s presidential bid, and also worked on the George H.W. Bush/Dan Quayle campaign of 1992. He has also been a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill.

Fleischer, who has gotten to know the Republican nominee quite well, said that people might be surprised to know how "affable and easygoing" Bush is away from the glare of the media.

"I can share my thoughts with him, even when they’re critical," he said.

Fleischer believes that Bush "has the ability to come to Washington and get things done."

"He’s done it in Texas," Fleischer said of Bush’s knack for bringing Lone Star Republicans and Democrats together.

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Stephen Goldsmith, former two-term mayor of Indianapolis, Ind., is Bush’s chief domestic-policy advisor. An early supporter of the concept of "charitable choice," which allows government funds to go directly to religious institutions to provide some social services, such as drug counseling and job training, Goldsmith is author of The Twenty-first Century City: Resurrecting Urban America.

Goldsmith was able to reduce his city’s budget by $120 million, and used the savings to help create a $500- million infrastructure-improvement program called "Building Better Neighborhoods." He is chairman of the Center of Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute and of the National Council for Public-Private Partnerships. Governing magazine named him its "Public Official of the Year" for 1995.

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Richard Perle is one of Bush’s key foreign-policy advisers. He served as assistant secretary of defense for international-security policy from 1981 to 1987. He is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute.

Perle, who served as producer of the PBS documentary "The Gulf Crisis: The Road to War," came under fire recently for reportedly asking advisers to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak not to let the Clinton administration use the Camp David talks to the benefit of the Clinton/Gore administration.

The former Reagan administration official, in explaining his comments, said he expressed his opinion that the issue of Jerusalem should be settled along with -- and not be separated from -- the other outstanding issues.

He told a Jerusalem Post reporter, "I didn’t discourage the achieving of an agreement. I certainly didn’t threaten them on any point, and I wasn’t speaking for Gov. Bush."

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Gary Polland, chairman of the Harris County (Houston), Texas, Republican Party, has been close with George W. Bush since both men helped Bush’s father become president in 1988. The relationship has grown closer ever since.

"I’ve gotten to spend time with him socially and in his office," Polland said. "What you see of him on the stump is really what he’s like."

An attorney and former chairman of the Anti-Defamation League in the Houston area, Polland has organized and hosted meetings between Jewish leaders in Texas and the governor. He has also sat in on discussions between the governor and policy wonks, such as William Kristol.

"He’s a very quick study; he’s a good listener," Polland said of Bush, adding that he finds the presidential hopeful adept at listening to a variety of opinions, digesting them and being able to "come up with something that makes sense."

In that regard, he said, "He’s a lot like President Reagan."

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Alan Sager and his family introduced Gov. Bush to the joys of matzah-ball soup and gefilte fish during Passover 1996. Sager, chairman of the Travis County (Austin), Texas, Republican Party, teaches government at the University of Texas.

Sager has known George W. Bush since he worked on the 1988 campaign of his father. Later, he backed the younger Bush for governor. "I thought he was an attractive candidate -- bright, had good business sense."

In 1996, as he sat behind Bush and his wife at a symphony concert, Sager said, he invited them over for a seder. "I wanted to get them acquainted with the Jewish community."

The governor, his wife and two daughters attended and read from the Haggadah. Bush seemed to enjoy himself, according to Sager. "He had his first matzah ball at my house. He didn’t like my mother’s gefilte fish."

Sager says that since Bush’s presidential campaign went into high gear, he hasn’t had a chance to visit with the governor, but when they have been together, "I found him always terribly accessible as a person."

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Texas State Sen. Florence Shapiro is effervescent when talking about her friend "George." Be it his character, what he has done for her personally or his overtures to the state’s Jewish community, she cannot seem to say enough about the two-term governor.

Shapiro, whose represents the Dallas area, says she has known Bush for 10 years, but "I’ve known him personally about seven years." She says she has found him "very gregarious, easy to get to know and outgoing. He is enormously friendly to everyone -- everyone."

It is for these and other reasons that Shapiro says she has been behind Bush’s candidacy "150 percent, since before he made his announcement." But, she said, "That doesn’t mean I agree 100 percent with him all the time."

One area of disagreement, she said, is on abortion. "Abortion is the law of the land today, but there ought to be limitations."

Bush was the featured speaker when Shapiro’s parents were honored last year at the Holocaust memorial center in Dallas. She says the governor broke away from a campaign stop in New Jersey to make a special trip back to Dallas for the event.

When New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani pulled out of a speaking commitment two days before a major event sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, Shapiro said, she called on Bush to pinch-hit. "I’ll do it," he said, and Shapiro and Bush flew to Dallas from Austin to appear there.

Shapiro recalls Bush’s campaign speeches when he first ran for governor in Texas’ Bible Belt. "Every time he used the word ‘church,’ he used the word synagogue."