If Shinzo Abe wants to be remembered as more than a two-time failure as a Japanese leader, he should learn from the last one to achieve anything big: his political mentor, Junichiro Koizumi.
Yes, I know. Koizimi's five-year premiership ended feebly in 2006. But early on, Koizumi's signature slogan — "reform without sacred cows" — made him wildly popular with Japanese tired of years of drift and cronyism in Tokyo. In speeches and blog posts, Koizumi urged voters to pressure his own Liberal Democratic Party to support change.
With public opinion firmly on his side, the "maverick," as Koizumi was called, was able to prod banks to write down bad loans from the 1980s. He cut wasteful public-works spending and privatized huge entities like Japan Post. He cast aside diplomatic niceties to visit North Korea.