At 02:58 PM 11/3/2004 -0800 Dave Land wrote:
>However you characterize President Bush's policies, I think he and
>his administration will take re-election as a vote of confidence,
>so we should expect four more years of the same, only this time
>without concerns about reelectibility.
I don't think that this means what you think it means.
1) Bush will certainly be concerned about electing his successor, whomever
that may be, as well as more GOP Senators and Representatives in 2006 and
2008. One theme of Bush's Presidency has been an almost extraordinary
emphasis on party-building.
2) With that being siad, Bush clearly believed that his strongest path to
re-election was not in moving towards the middle, but in sticking to his
principles and shoring up his base. Just based on his record from the
first four years, though, it is hard to believe that it would be possible
for him to govern even more conservatively than he already has.
3) Presidents tend to be concerned about their legacy in their second
terms. The #1 priority is going to be winning the battle in Iraq. The
#2 priortiy is going to be tackling Social Security. I don't expect much
in the way of tax increases, except as part of a broader overhaul of Social
Security, and I expect that Bush's judicial nominees will tend towards
being fairly conservative and not finding Roe vs. Wade in the penumbra of
the Constitution - but that would be no change from the first four years.
JDG
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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