PRESIDENT KERRY
How does that sound? Are you scared? Excited? Indifferent? That, more than specifics on issues, will probably determine the outcome of the presidential race.
We are still in the age of the in-box presidency. (It's amazing how well my editorial from four years ago still holds up.) As many people have noted, George W. Bush didn't run on a platform of activist foreign policy. World events, not personal plans, determined his priorities.
Of course, presidents do make a difference on policy--but not always the one you'd expect. If we'd had a Democratic president, the Republican Congress would probably have killed the expansion of Medicare. But with their man in office, enough conflicted Republicans went along with the program to give us a huge new entitlement with unknown, but predictable, consequences for government control of the pharmaceutical industry.