Did America "embrace" Bush's agenda?

Today in class, we discussed a politician's positioning on the median voter model. Recall that this model suggests that a candidate seeks the support of swing voters of whom will ultimately determine the outcome of a political race. Using the median voter model as reference, President Bush was the most successful at reaching a "common ground" with Republicans and Democrats alike. But in an election with a 3% difference in popular vote, John Kerry had to be almost as close to the median as Bush was/had been.

In his acceptance speech, President Bush claimed that America has "embraced" his agenda, but Democratic senator Kent Conrad doesn't get it. "There's no free lunch," Conrad said, echoing Dr. Delemeester's teachings, "and at the end of the day our country will have a tremendous price to pay for this profligacy." What do you think? Did America truly "embrace" Bush's conservative agenda? What could John Kerry have done during his campaign to have gained the few extra feet of "common ground" that would have convinced the swing voters to have voted for him?