WASHINGTON DC -- August is a strange month in the nation's capital. You can find a parking place on Capitol Hill. You can drive down a gridlock-free M Street in Georgetown. You can get a table at The Palms without a reservation and without Charlie Trie. Perhaps the most significant clue that Washington has emptied out is that the datelines of the pundits' columns sport exotic locations such as Martha's Vineyard, Hilton Head, Jackson Hole, and Bar Harbor. The quiescence of the capital makes it a good time for reflection on "whither we are tending," as Lincoln would say.

Were it not for the UPS strike (which has stranded a large book order of mine), there would be virtually nothing for the Sunday chat shows to discuss. But this contract dispute brings back to mind another old contract that has expired: The "Contract with America." Remember that one? Are voters happy with management, or will they go on strike at the next election? Conservatives might ponder this in the shade of their vacation umbrellas.

The 1994 "Contract with America" is now regarded as a subject of apprehension because of the mishaps that have befallen House Republicans since then, but I continue to think it was generally a good idea. If there was a flaw, it was not the tactical mistakes, such as the $500 per child tax credit that provided President Clinton with a wedge to derail a broad-based tax rate cut. Rather, the problem with a laundry list of ideas, no matter how popular in and of themselves, is that sometimes the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It was difficult, despite the best effort of Gingrich, to keep the central point in mind: The Opportunity Society.

One of Gingrich's virtues on his long march to the top was his repetition of the idea of the "Opportunity Society," which is clearly intended to supplant the entitlement state of the "Great Society." And as this former history professor well knows, repetition is the key to market penetration. LBJ, after all, repeated the phrase "Great Society" 16 times in April and May of 1964 before the media began to pick it up. The rhetorical and media success of the Contract with America, however, had the effect of overshadowing the Opportunity Society theme that was meant to be its core principle.

The great political divide in this country can be reduced, as Harvard's Harvey Mansfield has argued, to the competition between the idea of the entitlement society versus the opportunity society. The next Contract with America could be called "The Opportunity Contract" and could sharpen the differences between the two parties on issues such as school choice and banning racial preferences. It would also force the media to throw a light on the theme of opportunity. It would give the voters a way of discerning the difference between the collaborators behind the recent budget muddle. And without a new contract offer for the voters, why even bother to come back from vacation?

-By Steven Hayward