What's the big idea?

President Bush's aides want him to have a "Kennedy moment" so badly they're actually ready and willing to steal a moment from John F. Kennedy himself.\nSpecifically, they want to steal from a speech Kennedy gave to a joint session of Congress in 1961, during which he said he believed America "should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth."\nSo, this week President Bush will rewind history and try to recreate American interest in landing on the moon as he calls for a permanent human settlement on the moon, perhaps as a stepping-stone to sending humans to Mars.\nAccording to The Washington Post, an unnamed presidential adviser said they're "trying to rally people emotionally around a great national purpose." In other words, they want a big idea that will carry people to the polls.\nI can't blame any president who wants to have his own Kennedy moment. But I'm pretty sure it's fair to request that a Kennedy moment shouldn't be something John Kennedy already had, especially something that was a big idea 40 years ago.\nThe incredible thing is, now that we've begun the twenty-first century, we have an extraordinary opportunity for brave, courageous politicians to propose the next generation of big ideas. Instead of serving as cheap re-election ploys, these ideas will be causes greater than the people who propose them, and they will help shape the future. \nYet presidential candidates from both parties are reluctant to embrace and inspire Americans.\nHere's a suggestion for the field: We should set a realistic and attainable goal for America to become independent from foreign oil in the next twenty years. If we're going to be serious in counterterrorism efforts, we should release ourselves from dependence on volatile Middle East countries. \nAlso, with a finite supply of petroleum and regional instability around oil reserves, we must conserve and invest in alternative, clean and renewable sources of energy. Tax cuts and government subsidies for corporations won't cut it as an energy policy.\nThis is an urgent issue that needs to be addressed in the 2004 campaign, but it's unlikely to succeed simply because of the close ties between industry and government. \nAnother suggestion: what about fiscal responsibility? The U.S. budget is tattered. It's hard to believe, as the current administration claims, that no one wants to pass debts onto future generations, when money is spent recklessly. Washington simply has to clean up what has been messed up. Allocated money should be held accountable. \n Additionally, the government has to come up with a fresh solution for Social Security. One possibility is to allow younger workers to invest pension money into retirement accounts. At this spending rate, to pay for baby boomers' retirements, taxes will increase drastically, payments to retirees will decrease to unsatisfactory levels or we will amass huge deficits. \n But instead of ambitious ideas, the 2004 campaign is shaping up to be a choice between fear and anger. Fear dictates we keep the incumbent, and the anger dictates we elect someone else. \nSeizing new big ideas would be a wonderful opportunity, but no one will touch it because big ideas are more complex than fear and anger, and not safely time-tested, like the successful big ideas of the past.\nThey'll all say big ideas are too risky and too unpopular — but hey, that's the stuff Kennedy moments are made of.