Bush Aide Named Transportation Chief : Cabinet: Deputy White House chief of staff’s nomination pleases the President’s backers. Others note he has little experience in the field.

President Bush completed an election year Cabinet shake-up Wednesday by choosing as transportation secretary Deputy Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., a politician with long ties to the Bush political organization but few to the aviation, rail or highway industries.

The choice of Card left Bush loyalists pleased that one of the President’s earliest and most ardent backers had been promoted.

On Capitol Hill and in the transportation industry, however, sources noted that Card has little experience in the field--a fact that one Senate source said would be “of interest” in weighing his confirmation.

If confirmed by the Senate, Card would replace Samuel K. Skinner, Bush’s first transportation secretary. Last month Bush named Skinner as his chief of staff when John H. Sununu resigned under intense criticism over his confrontational style.

While Card is considered an efficient manager who gets along well with both Democrats and Republicans, sources said, he would need to rely heavily on Deputy Secretary James B. Busey IV in day-to-day operations that call for transportation industry expertise.

Among the key issues he is likely to face are the shaky financial footing of the airline industry as it simultaneously undergoes consolidation while expanding its overseas routes; questions about auto safety, including bumper and air-bag standards; and the politically potent task of overseeing the distribution of funds from the $151-billion transportation bill during an election campaign.

“His distinguished career in national service at both the state and the national level give him a unique background for serving the nation’s transportation interest,” Bush said. “Whether it be in aviation, railroads, mass transit, shipping or the Coast Guard, I know that Andy Card’s leadership will be an important ingredient in providing the most effective transportation system possible.”

Transportation experts on Capitol Hill and elsewhere had little to say publicly about Bush’s decision, announced in a quickly called early morning press briefing.

In a written statement, Robert J. Aaronson, president of the Air Transport Assn., said that airline companies would ask the new secretary “to focus immediately on our industry’s financial crisis and the tax changes we will be seeking in the months ahead to help us invest in new airplanes.”

Bush is expected next week to urge federal agencies to impose a 90-day moratorium on new regulation as a step toward eliminating red tape and accelerating economic recovery. A senior Administration official said Wednesday that Bush had decided against making the step mandatory.

Card, 44, has been deputy chief of staff since Bush took office three years ago.

Early in his career, he was one of the youngest members of the Republican legislative leadership in Massachusetts, first serving in the Legislature’s lower house in 1975.

Although he left the Legislature and moved to Washington--first working in a private corporation and then as a deputy assistant to former President Ronald Reagan--he is said by friends to remain interested in becoming governor of Massachusetts, despite an unsuccessful campaign for his party’s nomination 10 years ago.

Card has spent little time in his chosen profession--that of structural design engineer, for which he trained at the University of South Carolina after first enrolling at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He worked in engineering in Massachusetts for about three years.

In 1976, he attended the Republican National Convention and, a longtime friend said, “fell in love with the process” of electing a President.

He decided within months to get involved in the 1980 presidential campaign and the first potential candidate to whom he turned was then-Gov. James R. Thompson of Illinois. When Thompson never responded to a letter Card wrote, the young Massachusetts legislator looked elsewhere, eventually signing on as Bush’s 1980 campaign chairman in the state.

Card has won plaudits from others in the Bush circle for his low-key manner. He showed little interest in the trappings of the White House, choosing, for instance, blue jeans and a lobster restaurant with Formica tables and no liquor license to a jacket and tie and fine-wine restaurant when dining near Bush’s summer home in Kennebunkport, Me.

What Card may lack in experience in transportation, he makes up in political savvy, said one Republican with ties to the Administration.

While Busey may handle operational matters requiring expertise involving airlines, highways, railroads, pipelines or the Coast Guard--the purview of the Department of Transportation--and particularly difficult decisions may draw Skinner’s attention, Card “will be administering one of the single biggest government spending programs, and that has a lot of political implications,” the Republican source said.