|
George W. Bush is gone from Washington and sometimes the cityseems to have forgotten him. For all the passions that he inspired,the 43rd President's legacy has been absent from the 2012campaign. Mitt Romney s dog and Barack Obama s collegegirlfriends feel like larger presences in this election season thanthe President who invaded Iraq, bailed out the banks and slashedtaxes. Bush's legacy was strangely absent from the Republicanprimaries, his name almost never mentioned in the countless debates. Romney seems allergic to Bush'sname, as though it could summon some kind of terrible curse. AfterBush blurted a one-line endorsement of Romney from an elevator last month,Romney expressed his gratitude by cryptically referring to W. as Obama s predecessor ; his spokeswoman made ageneric reference to the President. Maybe that's betterthan "whatshisname" but not by much. Not that Bush has actually been forgotten. Americans still rememberW., just not very fondly. Last week, a CNN/ORC poll found that Bush is the least popular of the living ex-Presidents.His 43% favorability rating may be higher than it was in thedarkest days of his presidency, when it bounced around in themid-30s, but Bush is still less popular than Jimmy Carter, a manRepublicans treat as a walking punch line. ( PHOTOS: Presidents in Profile: 20 Portraits from the White House Archives ) No wonder, then, that the Romney camp is loath to discuss Bush.More surprising is how infrequently Democrats have invoked Bush slegacy. In 2008 Obama's campaign harped on Bush so much thatSarah Palin complained they were pretending they are running against our currentPresident. Today Obama often warns voters about GOP economicpolicies that got us into this mess. But he rarely if evermentions Bush by name. And his remarks on Friday about thesputtering economy didn t even include a reference to the former President s policies. Recently, however, some key party figures have sought to resurrectBush s controversial legacy. How does Mitt Romney differ fromGeorge Bush? Neera Tanden, an Obama ally and the president of theCenter for American Progress, asked on NBC s Meet the Press earlier this month. Romney s policies really do double down onthe policies of the Bush Administration, Tanden argued, sayingRomney proposes to slash taxes for the wealthy with no credibleplan to reduce the deficit. Days later, the Democratic National Committee threw its punch atW., responding to an anti-Obama ad from the pro-Republican PACAmerican Crossroads by noting the group s ties to Bush'sformer political fixer Karl Rove. The ad s criticism of Obama seconomic policies, DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse told reporters, was laughable coming from someone who bearsresponsibility for the problems that we re facing today, addingthat Romney s [economic] plan is modeled after the samepolicies. (On Friday, Woodhouse tweeted much the same point, saying Romney s economic plan features"the same polices Bush/GOP followed which crashed oureconomy. Brilliant, huh? ) ( MORE: George Bush Is the Least Popular Living President ) Asked about the relevance of Bush s record to the currentcampaign, Bill Burton, a former White House spokesman who now runsthe pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, enthusiasticallyjoined the chorus: Romney wants to double down on the verypolicies that got us into this mess, Burton said. Romney's vision is a triple dose of the samedeficit-ballooning ideas that President Bush saddled our nationwith. He would decimate Medicare and drive up our debt, all to cuttaxes for the wealthy even more. Obama s allies are invoking the B word when it comes to foreign policy too. After informal Romneyadviser John Bolton last week assailed Obama s diplomacy with Iran, former Obama Pentagon officialMichele Flournoy fired back , In 2003 John Bolton and other senior Bush Administrationofficials blew past diplomacy and rushed to war in Iraq." AnObama campaign official told BuzzFeed that Romney is embracing thekind of reckless neoconservative thinking that produced theIraq war. ( Neoconservative , of course, being one of the more electrified epithets of the Bushera.) To hear Romney's campaign tell it, the Democratic effort toinvoke Bush is backward-looking and a sign of desperation aboutObama s economic record. The two names on the ballot are BarackObama and Mitt Romney, says Romney adviser Kevin Madden. Theycan talk all they want about former President Bush. This electionis about what's wrong with our economy today and how MittRomney can and will do a better job than President Obama can whenit comes to fixing it, so that tomorrow America can go back towork. (Of course, Romney has taunted Obama at least twice by likening him to Carter.) ( MORE: TIME s Exclusive Interview with George W. Bush ) But there could be smart strategy behind a focus on Bush. Democratsoften cite polling showing that voters blame Bush at least as much as Obama for the state of the economy, a dynamic that politicalscientist John Sides argues has propped up Obama s approval numbers. Given that theycan't blame Romney for the economy's weakness (beyondtheir broadsides against Bain Capital), Democrats are eager todrive home that point. "The challenge for Romney is that theadoption of these unaffordable tax cuts place him to the right ofPresident Bush and those policies failed to createprivate-sector job growth," says Tanden. "So raisingthese issues are really about tying Mitt Romney to a failedeconomic policy that didn't work before and won't workagain." In 1996 Bill Clinton campaigned on the theme of building a bridgeto the future. This year, Democrats may conclude that their fatedepends on making a connection to the past. MORE: Inside the Presidents Club. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as Er Yag Laser , China Breast Beautifying, and more. For more , please visit Diode Laser Hair Removal today!
Related Articles -
Er Yag Laser, China Breast Beautifying,
|
