The new chief of staff at the White House, Josh Bolten, has formed a five point “recovery plan” to restore public confidence in President Bush and improve his poll ratings, Time magazine reports in today’s issue.

One important element of the scheme, according to the magazine, is to emphasize the president’s views on immigration. While Mr. Bolten does not think his support for a guest worker program is popular, he intends to highlight instead the president’s policy to get tough with illegal immigrants by pressing for more funds for Mexican border patrols and he intends to use the new recruits and new hardware as a backdrop for press photo opportunities.

“Think of the visuals,” an anonymous Time source, who is reportedly a proponent of the plan, says. “He can go down to the border and meet with a bunch of guys and go ride around on an ATV.” The magazine reports that Mr. Bolten is aware that the disadvantage to this element of the revamp of the president’s image is that it will discourage Hispanic voters from supporting the Republicans.

Mr. Bolten acknowledges that Mr. Bush has lost support among Wall Street types, Time says, and he therefore intends to draw attention to two imminent changes to tax policy: extensions of the stock dividends and of the capital gains tax breaks. It is Mr. Bolten’s expectation that investment managers and others in the financial community will then go on television and talk up the health of the economy and the government’s contribution to the country’s prosperity.

The third element of Mr. Bolten’s plan is to have the president be more boastful of his successes in general. This would entail, Time reports, bragging about the Medicare prescription drug scheme, which Mr. Bolten believes has been more successful than the start-up difficulties would suggest.

Mr. Bush would also talk more often about the health of the economy, low and stable inflation, and record-high stock prices. Mr. Bush will also be urged to trumpet all optimistic signs coming out of Iraq’s new government as evidence that his Iraq policy is making progress.

The fourth element of Mr. Bolten’s plan, Mr. Bush showing himself as tough with Iran and its nuclear weapons program, Time describes as “the riskiest and potentially most consequential” of the changes in direction at the White House.

Continued bad news from Iraq and the ports security issue has made the president defensive on the platform, which, above all, ensured his re-election – national security. Mr. Bolten believes that as the Iran crisis deepens, the president will be able to regain the initiative by being resolute in the face of the Tehran regime.

The final dimension of the five-point plan is to improve relations between the president and press by appointing a friendly and seemingly impartial White House press spokesman who would be able to restore the harmony which traditionally links White House correspondents with the main source of their stories. To this end, Time reports, an affable performer on Fox News, Tony Snow, has been tapped for the job.