by Dick Morris

As George Santayana put it "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." He might have included an injunction to remember the past accurately.

The mythology surrounding the dramatic fall of the first President George Bush - from dizzying heights of popularity after the Gulf War to defeat less than two years later - may obscure the real risks for George W. Bush. His campaign team could draw the wrong lessons from a misguided view of history.

Bush I did not lose because of "the economy, stupid." A good economy might not have saved him, and a bad one need not have doomed him. The economy provided the coup de grace. But he was laid low and rendered vulnerable by four other factors:

1) He faced an opponent who took away his best issues. Bill Clinton supported the death penalty, pledged an end to "welfare as we know it" and promised a tax cut for the middle class. So Bush could not use crime, welfare or taxes as issues, the three staples of the GOP.

Can a Democrat take away Bush II's issues as effectively in 2004? It depends on which Democrat. Voters might come to believe that Joe Lieberman will be as fierce against terror as the president has been. But if the opponent is John Edwards or Dick Gephardt (who have been lukewarm on the war), or Howard Dean or John Kerry (who have been largely opposed), Bush will certainly have terrorism as his core issue.

2) Bush I screwed up his signature issue by raising taxes. Having been elected on a pledge of "read my lips - no new taxes," he raised taxes anyway. Once he'd broken his core promise, he could make no others and be believed.

Dubya has certainly kept faith with the voters on his signature issues of taxes and education. But have his tax cuts gone so far as to extinguish the potency of the issue? The Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll of April 24 would suggest that they have. Asked which tax cut proposal they would prefer, only 18 percent of voters backed the president's proposed $726 billion reduction, while 16 percent supported only a $550 billion cut, and 45 percent wanted a smaller tax cut or none at all. That issue isn't going to get anyone re-elected in 2004.

3) The Gulf War lost its relevance. Once Bush Sr. left Saddam in power, the war issue disappeared. It was nowhere to be found in the '92 campaign.

Will the War on Terror still captivate the nation's attention 18 months from now? The president's successes may haunt him. If he succeeds in dealing with North Korea and prevents attacks at home, the issue's political potency may evaporate before Election Day.

4) Bush I had no domestic-policy issue with which to control events. With no domestic agenda beyond fighting the recession and cutting the deficit, he lost control over the political dialogue.

Dubya faces much the same problem: He lacks a domestic-policy issue. If terror fades - either because of Bush's success or because Lieberman wins the Democratic nomination - he's got no backup. Tax cuts aren't the answer; nor is partial-birth abortion or energy production or lawsuit limitation.

Bush needs a hot-button domestic issue with which to dominate the debate of 2004. I think that a crackdown on immigration from terrorist nations and drug testing for students in schools may offer the best choices. But without an issue that controls the domestic agenda, President Bush may repeat his father's history.

Will Bush win? Yes, probably - but it's not in the bag.