Had Reagan waited until his re-election to begin the tax reform process, I seriously doubt that he would have been successful. There simply wasn?t time to start from scratch with such a big initiative, given the slowness of Congress and all the competing matters requiring the president?s time.

 With this history in mind, how likely is it that Bush will come up with something big at the convention that will have even the remotest chance of legislative success? Not very. He would need to have prepared the ground far better than it has been for something like tax reform or Social Security reform to really be viable anchors for a second-term agenda.

 Although Bush talks often about Social Security reform, he has never outlined a specific proposal. He appointed a commission to do so and then promptly forgot about it. His comments on the subject since have been so vague as to be virtually meaningless. And given the deficit and huge cost of the Medicare drug benefit that he rammed through Congress, it?s hard to see where the money would come from to finance the transition to a privatized Social Security system.

 Tax reform is even harder to do because it would require undoing much of what Bush has done with tax policy for the last three years. Given that he is publicly committed to making every element of his tax legislation permanent and that he is facing a big problem with the Alternative Minimum Tax, it?s hard to see how a meaningful tax reform initiative would even begin.

 Finally, we have the Iraq situation to clean up. That will likely eat up a huge portion of the president?s time and attention, leaving very little for anything on the domestic side. We also know from history that presidents tend to concentrate more on foreign policy in their second terms anyway.

 Thus, realistically, there is unlikely to be a second term agenda for Bush, regardless of what he may announce at the convention. There is simply nothing in the pipeline, and it?s too late to start something new.