GOTTA LEAVE SOMETHING FOR CONDI & JEB TO DO NEXT TERM:

Overreaching?:
Even some Bush supporters are questioning his ambitious campaign to overhaul Social Security. (Richard Wolffe and Holly Bailey, Jan. 12, 2005, Newsweek)

The classic fate of the second-term president is something this historically minded White House is acutely aware of. Hampered by unruly politics at home, second-termers traditionally turn their attention to global affairs, where the president can still reign supreme. Just two months after his election victory, George W. Bush is determined to push ahead with an ambitious domestic agenda. Yet his strategy is already facing sharp questions from his political allies at home and risks being overshadowed by events overseas. And we’re still a week away from Inauguration Day. [...]

This week the president effectively launched his campaign to overhaul Social Security, including his long-held desire to establish private retirement accounts. Yet some of his most stalwart supporters are openly questioning his strategic wisdom. Senior officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents some of the nation’s biggest corporations, are now urging the White House to delay its Social Security reforms in favor of measures that would be easier to pass, such as tort reform and an energy bill. “A mandate lasts about 15 minutes in this town,” Chamber president Tom Donohue says tartly. Instead Donohue wants Bush to “address the low-hanging fruit that’s already keyed up”—not the ambitious stuff that will require so much of the president’s political capital. While the organization does support a Social Security overhaul, Donohue said the president could better preserve his election momentum by pushing legislation that would have “a lot better chance of success.”

Of course it's overly ambitious, as was his first term agenda, but look at the remarkable purpose that has served: his party had a coherent platform to run on in the '02 mid-term; he had perhaps the first truly ambitious second term agenda in American history; and now he's poised to shape not only the discussion in the '06 mid-term but even in the '08 presidential.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 13, 2005 4:33 PM