Mark Schmitt
TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect: "But there's another lesson in George W. Bush's 2004 victory over Kerry by demolishing Kerry's personal reputation: It left Kerry's agenda untouched. As Bush discovered from the day after his 2005 inauguration, he had no mandate for conservative policies such as Social Security privatization because he had not run on them.
But if it succeeds, it will have the effect of giving the next president exactly what George W. Bush didn't have: A mandate. The voters will have rejected not just McCain, but the entire economic and foreign policy agenda of conservatism. And that's as important as winning the election, perhaps more important. (If McCain picks Mitt Romney, who is basically an automaton with the Republican platform loaded into him in Cobol, the campaign-against-conservatism will be even more likely to be effective.)"