Call me old fashioned, but I’m of the opinion that presidential candidates, whether they’re incumbents or not, should tell voters about their agenda for the next four years before the election, not after.
But now that the 2004 election is behind us, Bush is prepared to address his priorities in earnest.
A minority president no more, President Bush sketched a second-term agenda Thursday that includes fighting the worldwide war on terror and seeking tax overhaul and fundamental changes in Social Security at home.
“I’ve earned capital in this election and I’m going to spend it for what I’ve told the people I’d spend it on,” he said.
Hardly. Looking back at Bush’s standard stump speech from the campaign, the president spent far more time attacking Kerry and offering vague platitudes (you’ll be pleased to know he’s “pro-growth” and “pro-family”) than laying out anything resembling a substantive policy agenda.
Indeed, compare Bush’s approach to campaigning this year to 2000 and even 1994. One of his strengths as a candidate has been creating a clear and limited set of goals and repeating them ad nauseum. Four years ago, everyone knew exactly what Bush wanted to do as president: cut taxes, No Child Left Behind, “reform” Medicare, “strengthen” the military, and a faith-based initiative. In his first run for governor, Bush was also clear and concise about his intentions, including restructuring Texas’ welfare, education, and juvenile-justice systems.
But if Bush thinks he’s “told the people” anything specific about the next four years, he hasn’t been paying attention to his own rhetoric.
Ask yourself: what priorities/policies did Bush lay out in the campaign? Most of his rhetoric dealt with John Kerry and John Edwards. A whopping 71% of his 64 TV ads were negative assaults on Kerry directly (in contrast with Kerry’s 51%). Throw in some rhetoric about 9/11 and the “threat” Saddam Hussein posed and you’ve got Bush’s pitch in a nutshell. I’m not oblivious to the election results, but Bush didn’t win because voters approved of his policy agenda for a second term; he won despite not having one.
Now that the election is over, here’s Bush’s new pitch.
“To accelerate the momentum of this economy and to keep creating jobs, we must take practical measures to help our job creators, the entrepreneurs and the small business owners. We must confront the frivolous lawsuits that are driving up the cost of health care and hurting doctors and patients. We must continue the work of education reform, to bring high standards and accountability not just to our elementary and secondary schools, but to our high schools, as well.
“We must reform our complicated and outdated tax code. We need to get rid of the needless paperwork that makes our economy — that is a drag on our economy, to make sure our economy is the most competitive in the world.
“We must show our leadership by strengthening Social Security for our children and our grandchildren. This is more than a problem to be solved; it is an opportunity to help millions of our fellow citizens find security and independence that comes from owning something, from ownership.”
That’s pretty much it. The winner of the most important election in generations has frivolous lawsuits at the top of his list, but no one has any idea what his plan looks like. Bush is also committed to “reforming” the tax code, but he refuses to say how. He’s going to “strengthen” Social Security by taking $2 trillion out of the system and not cutting anyone’s benefits, which should be an interesting trick.
To be fair, Bush has briefly alluded to these vague priorities before, but while Kerry was laying out detailed policy proposals, the 2004 campaign’s biggest missing link was an explanation about what specifically Bush was prepared to do with another term and how he’d go about achieving those goals.
In other words, if Bush interprets this week’s results as a “mandate” for this policy agenda, he’s going to over-reach. Voters couldn’t endorse a list of priorities they heard almost nothing about.