They are providing the kind of political discourse that you can easily lose in the parking lot of ideas. At a time of extraordinary creativity on the part of American business, the nation's policy debate seems caught between snarling partisanship and poll-driven Pablum. If businesses execs are succeeding by thinking outside the box, Bush, and especially Gore, are trapped squarely inside. It's not like no big issues are out there. There's no better time to address them than during this era of economic prosperity.
Some candidates are willing to get out front.
GOP hopeful Steve Forbes has laid out some tough, specific ideas for restructuring taxes and retirement. Where Bush would fiddle with tax rates and distribute a few baubles to this group or that, Forbes would scrap the entire system and start anew. In the same spirit, Democratic Presidential wannabe Bill Bradley has put forward an ambitious health-care reform plan. Where Gore would do little more than preserve the rickety Medicare system, Bradley wants to take steps toward providing health care to everyone. This isn't to say that either Bradley or Forbes have found the solutions to these problems.