Am I the only one who sensed the spectral presence of President Clinton, pre-bypass, hovering over President Bush as he delivered his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention?

The speech, or at least its second half, has been widely praised as a stirring justification for the country’s continued vigilance in the war on terror – along with Bush’s subtle conflation of “continued vigilance” with “my re-election.”

But that’s not the half of the speech that reminded me of Mr. Clinton. The first half, in which Mr. Bush outlined his domestic agenda, received less praise – a “laundry list,” critics called it – but it was much more interesting, and its political significance, I’ll wager, will be farther-reaching.

For in it Mr. Bush declared the death of American conservatism. As a guide either to governing or to politicking, conservatism is over, finished, kaput. The hovering presence of Mr. Clinton looked pleased.

And well he might have. The “laundry-list” technique that Mr. Bush used in that long first half was perfected by Clinton. And it is more than a rhetorical trick. The laundry-list speech, consisting of brief summaries of one program after another, is uniquely suited to a style of governing, and a philosophy of government, that Mr. Bush has happily embraced.

Call it the omni competent state. Mr. Clinton didn’t invent it, of course, but he was its pre-eminent salesman, even when he announced, as he did in his 1996 State of the Union address, that the “era of big government is over.”

Before Mr. Clinton, White House speechwriters were bedeviled by the State of the Union speech, which every president, with much pomp and pretense, delivers annually. The speech must be “thematic,” they were told, lest it disintegrate into a laundry list of unrelated items and bore the audience.

Mr. Clinton rejected the conventional wisdom. He wrapped his meaty arms around the laundry list. For 70 minutes or more he would describe, seemingly at random and with a few sentences each, dozens of different programs that were fitted to every conceivable frustration or annoyance citizens might feel,no matter how niggling – from the lack of discipline at their children’s school to the gridlocked traffic on their morning commute.

Not surprisingly, the speeches were rhetorically loose-jointed and uninteresting. If you listened long enough, however, sooner or later you heard about a federal program just for you.

Mr. Clinton always pretended that his programs were somehow revolutionary – that government, in his catch phrase, had been “reinvented” to meet the unprecedented pace of social change roiling his audience. And his audience was more than receptive.

Wowing focus groups, drawing huge television ratings, Mr. Clinton’s laundry lists were the most successful State of the Union addresses in history.

While announcing its demise, Mr. Clinton in fact saved big government, by disaggregating it and aiming each piece at a particular constituency who might come to rely on its generosity.

Mr. Clinton was so successful that by 2000 the Republican presidential nominee – that would be Mr. Bush – had abandoned the traditional conservative premise that an overweening government often stood in the way of a free and self-reliant citizenry.

Thus Mr. Bush’s spending on domestic programs has vastly outstripped Mr. Clinton’s. His recent Medicare expansion alone, by some estimates, will cost $2 trillion over the next 20 years. And several speakers at this month’s Republican convention – including Education Secretary Rod Paige and retired General Tommy Franks – boasted that for many programs – special education and veterans affairs among them – Mr. Bush had spent more in four years than Mr. Clinton had in eight.

After opening his convention speech with a promise to “restrain federal spending, reduce regulation,” and create a “simpler, fairer” tax code, Mr. Bush promised, in the next paragraph, to “double the number of people served by our principal job-training program and increase funding for community colleges.”

In the paragraph after that, he said he would create “opportunity zones” by adding new provisions to the tax code.

Then he said he would “offer a tax credit to encourage small business” and “provide direct help,” also known as money, to low-income Americans to buy health insurance.

Also, he’ll build health centers in every community in America, and 7 million more homes in the next 10 years, and “provide a record level of funding” for education.

Don’t forget Pell grants for the middle class, and early intervention programs for youngsters. And a new reform – medical savings accounts – that will further complicate the tax code. Then he promised to simplify the tax code again.

At the end of his laundry list, Mr. Bush made an artful pivot. He attacked his opponent, Mr. Kerry, for “proposing more than $2 trillion in new federal spending.”

Like Clinton, Bush pretends all this frenetic governmental activism is revolutionary – uniquely adapted to our unprecedented new era. Every era thinks it is unprecedented.

There is much talk about “expanding choice.” Underlying it, however, is an idea that’s not new at all: the citizen as client, a consumer who fulfills himself by coming to rely on the blandishments of government.

For reasons that aren’t clear, Mr. Bush insists on calling his approach “conservatism.” Surely we can find a more accurate term. Has “Clintonism” already been taken?