WASHINGTON -- It's October 2004 and the vivid autumn foliage has converted the landscape into a magical sea of red, yellow, and orange.

A stable government has been established in Iraq and the ''road map" for the Middle East has led to peace between Israelis and the Palestinians. Spurred by a $350 billion tax cut, America's sluggish economy has turned around. George W. Bush is well ahead of his Democratic opponent in the race for the presidency.

Bush's view of the future is similar to that of Ronald Reagan in 1984, when he carried 49 of the 50 states, rather than to the outlook of his own father in 1992, when the elder Bush lost to Bill Clinton.

That is one way the future might look. There is another scenario.

It's the fall of 2004. Iraq is in chaos, fueled by virulent anti-Americanism and the Middle East remains in turmoil. Potential wars with Iran and North Korea loom larger on the radar screen.

The tax cut has not created the ''robust economy" that Bush predicted, and he is blamed for continued had times, as his father was in 1992. The 2003 tax cut has sharply increased the nation's budget deficit and the battle for the presidency is tight.

Back to today. While the popular Bush now is favored over any of the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, there is no guarantee that he will be re-elected next year.

He made a big political splash when he landed aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln last month, marched across the flight deck with a vigorous military stance, and explained to millions of Americans and a huge overseas audience that the United States and its allies had triumphed in Iraq.

Shortly after that brilliantly staged event, the president all but announced he would seek re-election and a few days later appeared at gala Republican dinner that raised $22 million.

While Republicans were gloating over their one-night take, Terrence McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, reported that his party would stage a fund-raising dinner in June that would bring in $1.5 million -- pocket change compared to what Bush can command.

Bush is nothing if not shrewd. If it turns out next year that the tax cut has not invigorated the economy, he can -- and probably will -- point out that the tax reduction approved by Congress was less than half of the $726 billion he originally proposed and, therefore, not large enough to produce prosperity.

He will then try to shift blame to the Democrats, although two Republican senators, Olympia Snowe of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio, who opposed Bush's much larger tax cut, were able clamp a lid of $350 billion on the measure.

Since the tax cut will have spread money through houses all across the nation, however, it will take a very brave Democratic presidential candidate to call on Congress to rescind the tax cut or reduce it.

Americans can get agitated about the federal deficit, but when we must decide between reduced taxes and a reduced deficit, our choice almost always is less taxation and more money in our pockets.

Tax cuts helped John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan turn a sluggish economy into a vigorous economy. Bush obviously hopes to duplicate those feats. But Democrats in the House and Senate asserted that the Bush-proposed tax reduction was unfair because it favored the rich.

What many Americans seem to have forgotten is the United States under Bill Clinton achieved the first balanced budget in three decades-- not because he cut taxes but because, among other things, he controlled federal spending.

In a House debate, Ways and Means Committee Chairman William M. Thomas of California accused the Democrats of indulging in ''class warfare" when they asserted that rich people would fare far better than the poor and the middle class under the $350 billion tax cut.

In response, Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, the ranking Democrat on the committee, declared: ''Is it class warfare? You bet your life. But you declared it, against the working people of America."

The point of the tax cut is to put added money into millions of households, improve the economy -- and produce millions of Republican votes in 2004.

Politics is like a mighty poker game and, at the moment, Bush, the tax-cutter extraordinaire, holds the winning cards. Whether his luck will hold out through the big game in November 2004 is another matter.

Robert E. Thompson is a columnist

for Hearst newspapers.