November 04, 2004, 9:14 a.m.
W, The Sequel
What to watch for.

By Joel C. Rosenberg

John Kerry ran on trashing our troops, raising taxes, abortion on demand, and gay marriage. Hard to believe he lost.

Now that the senator has officially conceded and President Bush is returning for a second term, here is what to watch for:

Foreign policy will dominate the agenda. Front and center: pacifying Iraq, containing a newly nuclear North Korea, and keeping Iran from building, buying, or stealing their own nuclear weapons. This won't be easy. Americans at the moment don't have the stomach for a war with Iran, but it may be necessary. How else can the White House stop Tehran, especially with Moscow helping the mullahs build nuclear power plants for supposedly "peaceful purposes"? Another crisis is also brewing in the Middle East: Yasser Arafat's days are numbered. The health of the 75-year-old godfather of the Palestinian movement is in serious decline, and various radical factions are jockeying to replace him when he passes from the political scene. The worst-case scenario may also be the most realistic: a Palestinian civil war that could doom the peace process, result in a bloodbath on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, threaten Israeli security, and even unleash a wave of Palestinian suicide bombers headed for the United States if Hamas leaders join forces with Al-Qaeda. Let's not kid ourselves. Round Two in office for President Bush could be dramatically more difficult than Round One.

The battle for judges is on. Will even a larger GOP majority in the Senate — including intensely pro-life evangelicals like John Thune of South Dakota and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — be enough for President Bush to get his federal judges confirmed? How soon will Chief Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist step down? How many other High Court nominations will Bush get to make? You thought the battle for Baghdad was intense. You ain't seen nothing yet. Watch for shell-shocked Senate Democrats to launch a political jihad to stop the president from reshaping the courts for the next generation.

Musical chairs will begin in the Bush Cabinet. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge will likely be among the first to announce he's stepping down, with Asa Hutchinson as the leading contender to replace him. But will there be a mass exodus? What will Colin Powell do? Will Condoleezza Rice replace him? Where will Rumsfeld go next?

Democrats will eat themselves alive. The battle to define why John Kerry lost is about to begin. Moderates will argue Kerry was too liberal. The Ted Kennedy-Howard Dean-Michael Moore-Al Franken faction will argue Kerry wasn't liberal enough. Watch for the president to reach out to New Democrats like Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, who won Tuesday night in a landslide. Could Bayh become the new Zell Miller?

More tax cuts are coming. That's almost certain. But there could be more. President Reagan made sweeping tax reform the centerpiece of his second term. President Bush talks highly of Russia's 13 percent flat tax, and aides hinted during the campaign that tax simplification is on the docket. Is the White House ready to fight for a simple, fair, 17 percent flat tax? Done right, it would unleash annual economic growth of 5 percent or more and send the stock market into the stratosphere. And the president would find tremendous grassroots support.

Whither Social Security reform? President Bush deserves great credit for making personal retirement accounts for younger workers a part of his agenda since the 2000 general election campaign. He's never backed off. He's just been looking for the right time. This is it. Watch to see whether renowned Chilean Social Security reformer Jose Pinera gets invited to the White House for a private chat, as he was invited to Austin in 1999 when then-Gov. Bush began to consider the issue.

The 2008 presidential race begins. Watch for Hillary Clinton to give a speech in Iowa in January. But if Kerry couldn't steal any southern or midwestern Red States from the GOP, could another northeastern liberal do so next time around? And to whom will Republicans turn in 2008? Rudy Guiliani, Bill Frist, Tom Ridge, and Jeb Bush are interested. Do they have star power for a national campaign? Will the president directly or indirectly anoint a successor?

CBS News will dump Dan Rather. If CBS execs are smart, they'll dump Dan Rather and raid Fox News personnel such as Brit Hume to rebuild. Better yet, give Rush Limbaugh a weekly prime-time or Sunday show and see ratings and revenues go through the roof.

— Joel C. Rosenberg served as Steve Forbes's deputy campaign manager in 2000 and is the author of The Last Jihad and The Last Days.

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