HELENA -- Top presidential adviser Karl Rove praised President Bush as "one of history's most consequential presidents" and touted Bush's plan to restructure Social Security as critical for the nation's younger and future workers.

Rove, deputy White House chief of staff for policy and senior adviser to the president, spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of 275 people attending the Lewis and Clark County Republican Central Committee's annual Lincoln-Reagan $100-a-plate dinner.

He put in a strong pitch for the re-election of U.S. Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., next year, saying Washington, D.C., hasn't changed the straight-shooting Burns as it does to so many people.

"The problem for Burns is Montana has cheap television spots, so the Democrats know it's cheaper to spend money and try to defeat him here than to try to win in a more expensive state," Rove said.

Billed by some as the mastermind who engineered Bush's two presidential wins, Rove heaped the praise instead on Bush, helped by the GOP donors campaign workers and volunteers who got 12 million more Bush voters to the polls last fall than in 2000.

Citing the second-term achievements of Presidents Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt as example, Rove disputed claims that presidents' second terms have to be lackluster. Bush has taken on an ambitious agenda in his second term, Rove said.

"He's about big things," Rove said. "Freedom abroad. Reform here at home."

On the international front, Bush is "one of history's great liberators," Rove said, while on the domestic side, the president has the chance to be "one of history's great reformers."

Rove spent a good part of his 26-minute speech pitching Bush's plan to revamp Social Security by giving younger workers the options of putting part of their payroll taxes into personal investment accounts instead.

"Wealth is too important to be left to the wealthy," Rove said, who told of his own family's humble beginnings. "Everyone ought to have a chance to tap into the power of the market."

He called Social Security "a $12 trillion unfunded liability" that will be bankrupt by 2041 because an insufficient number of working Americans will be paying into the account to cover the benefits paid out to retirees.

"If we don't deal with it now, it's going to hit us like a train wreck," Rove said.

Outside the Great Northern Best Western Hotel, about 40 people gathered to protest Rove's visit carrying signs that said, "Bush's brain: Liar in chief," "Affirm American values. Just say no to Bush's war" and "War is not a family value."

"We're here to say to Karl Rove and to President Bush through Karl Rove that we are totally opposed to the agenda he is proposing which is to cut back on human services in our country, cut back on affordable housing for the poor and from health care while going ahead with additional tax cuts for the rich," said Frank Kromkowski, co-chairman of the Helena Peace Seekers. "The $285 billion of cuts that will occur over five years if Bush's budget is approved would be a basic crime against the people of the United States, especially the poor, who have been growing under Bush's administration."

Kromkowski said the group opposes the war Bush has called a great victory but is actually a great defeat.