Over the past few days, I've been enjoying Dinesh D'Souza's terrific little book Letters to a Young Conservative. It's a breezy read, but very insightful and profound in places. D'Souza was once the senior domestic policy analyst in the Reagan White House, and one of his chapters is titled "How Reagan Outsmarted the Liberals." In it, he gives one of the best explanations for Reagan's success that I have ever seen.

He says (and I'm paraphrasing here, I don't have the book with me) "Reagan recognized that even as powerful as the President of the United States is, he can't change the world in 65 different ways. At best, he can change the world in two or three significant ways. Reagan decided that the three ways he was going to change the world were: reversing the tide of Soviet communism, curbing inflation, and reviving the economy."

Of course, Reagan did all these things brilliantly. Even then, he had a good number of the critics on the conservative side (the liberal opposition being obvious) who were hammering him for not: 1). bringing down the federal deficit, 2). destroying the Department of Education, 3). driving a stake through the heart of the welfare state, or 4). a million other things. But Reagan wisely realized that he couldn't do all these things. He was operating in the real world with a real Congress and real obstacles in front of him, and he focused in on maintaining his three objectives, naysayers from either side be damned. History has shown the effectiveness of his approach. All through, he was accused of being "detached." At one point, he was lambasted for not recognizing his own HUD Secretary at a meeting of big-city mayors. But, as D'Souza points out, this was mainly because he didn't care about HUD. Not one iota. He saw it as a huge bureaucratic rathole that would suck him in if he got anywhere near it. Despite criticism from the right ("Why aren't you doing anything about Big Government?!?"), he simply ignored it altogether in favor of his set objectives.

Just look at the recent presidents who have tried to change the world in 65 ways (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, among others)--they've all been largely ineffectual and have left no positive historical legacy.

Were the Fringe Right ever to miraculously get one of their nutty candidates actually elected (fantasize with me for a moment), he'd never be able to get a single thing done. His core constituency would demand that he end welfare, destroy 14 federal departments, repeal the income tax, shut down Social Security, close all the government schools, outlaw abortion, and close the borders all in one fell swoop. After about six months of not accomplishing any of this, they'd call for his head on a platter.

I could never be president (as if that were a looming possibility...) because I believe that the world does need to be changed in 65 different ways--and then some. I woudn't be willing to bend on, say, letting the Department of Education continue to bloat while expending all my political capital to get pro-life judges nominated. I'd want both. And I'd end up just like Jimmy Carter. Thank God for the president who has two or three big ideas that he can really make happen, whatever the whiners who want everything yesterday say.