At President Bush's first press conference after re-election, one statement sticks out.
The president was asked to clarify what he meant when he said he would reach out to Democrats who had fought so bitterly to remove him from office.
Essentially, he said he was willing to work with Democrats who share his goals — who agree with him. That's it.
In a second Bush term, bipartisanship appears to be out and mandates are in.
Bipartisanship out
Does the president have a mandate?
Of course he does. He won. The winner, no matter how close the election, is the one who governs.
But, it seems clear that gone are the days when the parties could fight like hell but still do business at the end of the day. For this president and this White House, that isn't much of a change.
In part, it's because the president hasn't found a partner on the Democratic side.
Early efforts to court Tom Daschle — when he was the Senate leader — failed and since 9/11 the capital has only grown more polarized.
The intelligence overhaul bill, which the president ultimately signed, could have been passed much sooner with help from Democrats, but the White House resisted.
The president's goal was to secure the support of Republicans first before reaching across the aisle. That tactic is one of the stories behind his victory in November.
Mandate in
The sense of a mandate is everywhere in this White House.
The holiday season, normally a time for endless presidential receptions, has seen Bush and his team kick into overdrive their efforts for the next big thing; in this case, Bush's domestic agenda.
Fixing Social Security — Bush's promise in 2000 — is back now with a vengeance.
Despite ample opposition from not just Democrats, but plenty within the Republican Party who think major change is risky politically, the White House is barreling ahead attempting to frame the debate.
Early next year the president will campaign to put Social Security on the national agenda by arguing that the cost of waiting to fix the retirement program will be much higher than tackling the problems now.
Foreign policy
Notwithstanding criticism that the United States was slow to respond to the devastating tsunami in Asia, the president feels he has a mandate on foreign policy as well.
Recent polls bear this out. An NBC News, Wall St Journal survey earlier in December showed that while Americans are increasingly pessimistic about a successful conclusion to the war in Iraq, just over 50 percent feel the president should keep U.S. troops in the country until a stable Iraqi democracy is created.
Here, too, while the president speaks of reaching out to allies in Europe with whom our relationship has suffered because of the war, he's not talking about compromise.
During a recent trip to Canada, a reporter asked him how the United States lost the wide support it enjoyed after the Sept. 11th attacks. Bush responded by citing the election results and declaring that the American people have made it clear they want the Bush administration's foreign policy to remain in place.
Iraq
In Iraq that means all eyes are on the elections at the end of January.
Vice President Dick Cheney discussed the administration’s foreign policy while he was in Afghanistan attending the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai in early December.
For Cheney, the election in Afghanistan represents a resounding success, despite the many difficulties that remain on the path toward stability in that country. Who would have imagined such a result in the aftermath of 9/11, boasted Cheney.
In Iraq, there are similar doubts about whether insurgent violence can be sufficiently contained to ensure a safe vote.
Bush's vision for a stable Iraq — which rejects ties to terror, abandons the pursuit of WMD (which critics would say Saddam Hussein never had before the invasion) and provides impetus for sweeping democratic change throughout the Middle East — will be put to the test.
But as he embarks upon a second term, the president has not stopped thinking big.
He's fond of saying that his time here in Washington is limited so "why think little."
That means the New Year will be a busy one in Washington with the president taking the sort of gambles on big issues that his supporters believe so strongly earned him four more years.