Nowhere is this more evident than in the fact that the frontrunners for the Republican nomination for president have all come out in favor of Bush's veto of the expansion of SCHIP.

The four leading Republican presidential candidates have aligned themselves with President Bush's veto on Wednesday of an expanded health insurance program for children, once again testing the political risk of appearing in lock step with a president who has low approval ratings and some critics of the veto within their party.

The message is clear: they too would have vetoed healthcare for kids.

What's most amazing is that for these guys, supporting this veto is actually somewhat of a no-brainer politically, since, despite the fact that the electorate at large is in favor of the SCHIP program and its expansion, the GOP primary electorate supports the veto.

As for the children's insurance veto, the candidates, in aligning with Mr. Bush, are mindful of the concerns of fiscal conservatives that expanding the program could result in huge future costs. Unlike with Iraq or Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Bush's capacity to be a drag on the candidates' fortunes is smaller on the insurance veto, Republican analysts say, because the veto is not especially unpopular with Republican primary voters. They are the current target audience for the candidates, according to their campaign advisers, so the electoral gamble of supporting the veto -- if not Mr. Bush -- is relatively modest at this point.

That said, they also know it's likely to be a liability in the general election, so aren't exactly shouting it from the mountaintops. All except Mitt Romney, that is, who still needs to shake off the healthcare program he signed into law in Massachusetts. Accordingly, Mitt Romney is the only one to post his statement of support for the veto on his website:

"I agree with the President that this legislation - while well intentioned - took the wrong approach. The Democrat SCHIP expansion bill would take children out of private insurance and put them into government insurance. It was a flawed approach. The right course is to get all children and all citizens insured with private, market-based health insurance."

And this guy thinks he's going to run as the candidate of change? This is just one more issue for the Democratic nominee to make clear that anyone of these guys elected president would equal Bush's 3rd term.