The indicators might also include portraits of the histories and governing styles of those who will staff the administration and be responsible for implementing, or attempting to implement, its policies. As a history of Bush’s appointments –to the EPA, Justice, DOD, HUD, have shown–these people may be better indicators of an administration’s governing style, or lack of one.

While the attention paid to the effectiveness of campaigning can be an indicator of governing, it is a misleading one. By this measure, one would have predicted a Bush administration to be at least competent. However, as most agree by now, Bush and his inner circle campaigned much better than they governed.

But ultimately I question how useful these lines of inquiry can be. Perhaps we look for indicators –campaign rhetoric, staff and croney biographies, campaign processes— to make our support for a particular candidate seem less like the leap of faith that it is. The implicit reasoning these questions reinforce is “If you want x, vote y.” Further, this question — how will a candidate likely govern? — reinforces the tendency to see our leaders as having an agency or efficacy they may not always possess. The trick, we tell ourselves, is cutting through the spin and figuring out how they will do their jobs.

I think the speculations of candidates’ governing elides a good deal of the messiness and conflicting priorities of the bureacracies that need to be instrumental in this governing. At the risk of hijacking this thread, I will note that the TV series “The Wire” provides a comprehensive rejoinder to this line of thinking, in part by showing the way in which bureaucractic priorities are perpetually misaligned and create perverse incentives that are difficult for reform-minded individuals to resist or change.

I think it’s unlikely that candidates are going to come out and explicitly answer the question that you’ve posed. (Though something about reactions to the Bush approach to executive power may be on their web sites; I haven’t looked.) But they’ve been showing us every day through their campaigns. “No leaks, no drama” will certainly be a watchword in an Obama White House.

Who’s had good advance work? Who’s had reverses? Whose reverses have been all over the press? Who’s mastered existing processes? Who’s created new avenues? The candidates have built half-billion-dollar enterprises in under two years. How they’ve done it will show how the will govern.

Those questions can probably be answered even through the veil of horse-race press coverage, and those answers will tell you a lot about how each candidate would govern.