Second Time Around, Bush Is Forgoing a Visionary Agenda
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, April 27 — George W. Bush ran for president four years ago on a platform of meaty domestic policy ideas, including tax cuts of historic proportions, the creation of Social Security investment accounts and a demand that school systems document their performance through increased testing of children.
This time around, in his race against Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush has so far offered little in the way of major new proposals. The few efforts he has made to set out a fresh, visionary agenda, like his call in January for a manned mission to Mars [P6: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!] or his plan to overhaul the immigration system, have disappeared from his own speeches and hardly show up on the national radar screen.
What he is left with is a list of proposals that he has been trying for the last several years to push through Congress, like his energy bill and his plan to restrict lawsuit awards against doctors and corporations, plus smaller-bore ideas that, however important and worthy, are hardly the kind that define a presidency.[P6: I beg to differ. Small-bore ideas are exactly the right size for him]