Beyond Bush
by Patrick Ruffini :: May 16th, 2008 9:44 pmThe hue and cry for the GOP to file for divorce against President Bush is reaching a crescendo with Tom Davis’s acid-tongued barbs and this more gracefully worded column by 2004 Bush campaign advisor Peggy Noonan.
Davis and Noonan mean well, but their proposed strategy amounts to taking the Democrats’ bait. Because whether the GOP decides to run for Bush or against him, the meta-narrative will still be about Bush. Any day people are reminded of the President in a political context, even when our people are throwing him under the bus, is a bad day for Republicans.
President Bush is a lame duck. His term expires in eight months. Politically speaking, John McCain is the leader of the party. Bush’s term will overlap that of the 111th Congress by a whopping 17 days. Why should Republican Congressional candidates take the bait by positioning themselves vis a vis someone who will be a political non-factor once they take office? If they embrace President Bush, it’s political poison. If they make a fuss of distancing themselves, it guarantees headlines with Candidate X and Bush in close proximity, and looks politically motivated. Don’t take the bait.
The challenge for Republicans is not to support Bush or to reject Bush but to transcend Bush. We are quickly nearing the point where the last piece of meaningful legislation will cross this President’s desk. To suggest that Republicans might want to get around to crafting a post-Bush agenda ignores the fact that the post-Bush era is already upon us. It began March 4, when John McCain secured 1,191 delegates. Start acting like it. John McCain is the only national Republican local Republicans should be talking about.
Republican candidates could do well by parrying attempts to tie them to Bush as follows:
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that President Bush sparks strong feelings on both sides. But last I checked, there’s an election coming up soon to replace George Bush. I’m focused on the future, and the next Congress and the next President. There’s only one person in this race who’s fixated on the past and on George Bush and that’s my opponent. I can only assume that’s because he’d love to continue the hyper-partisanship of the last decade. Not me.
With all due respect, my opinion of President Bush matters about as much as my opinion of President Coolidge. They’ll both be in the history books come next January. When I hit the ground running in 2009, I look forward to serving with President McCain to bringing gas prices down and our troops home victorious.
This has the advantage of being intellectually honest. Voters are forward-looking and know that Bush won’t be President soon. In no other election since 2000 could you say this.
By subjecting themselves to a massive internal debate over the President, Republicans would validate the Democratic narrative of this election as a referendum on Bush. Just ask Al Gore how productive meta-debates about the President’s role in his exit year really are. And his boss was at 65%.
Don’t take the bait.
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Then how are they suppose to avoid being linked to the failed Republican leadership in Congress? How are the candidates suppose to avoid the lack of crediblity that the Republians have on the issues? It is more than President Bush who has been a failure The Republican leadership in Congress has been a failure. The Repubican leaders in most states have been a failure.
Why should anyone support a Republican candidate when after being elected, they do the opposites of what they said they would do?
The Repubican party is in a death spiral and talking in vague terms about the future is not the answer.
Thankfuly, unlike the recycled rants of SD, the CT Republicans actually think rallying the troops ought to be done
http://www.everydayrepublican.com/2008/05/16/enough-already-shut-up-and-suit-up/
ironman,
If you look at the positions you support, there contain the reasons that the Republicans are in a death spiral. TAx cuts are good but at the federal level the require massive spending cuts. The Republicans in Congress decided that cutting spending was too hard and thus added over five trillion to the national debt. They also encouraged expansion of the government because they were getting it at a discourt due to deficit spending.
It is hard to consider that the Republicans really care about national security consider the failure to the secure the border with mexico, the failure to implement port security, and the failure to have internal security in the U.S
The formale that the Republicans in Conn. are following is just a different type of death spiral than the failures of the Bush Administration Democratic-lite is a failure. If people want big spending politicians who are socially liberal, they will vote for Democrats.
well, I won;t hold my breath awaiting your brilliant strategy beyond finger pointing at prior mistakes.
and I doubt you know much at all about local politics here in CT. We won our last three special elections here, thank you very much
Right now we can either grab a rifle and man a post, or get the hell out of the way of those folks who grabbed the rifle.
ironman,
There is more to the Republican Party than the country club Republicans who are in the minority in the Conn. State House. A national political party needs to win in 50 states. The old, tired idea that tax cuts without spending cuts is going to work at the 50 state level is insane. The Democratic-lite of social liberal, open borders, and deficit spending is a failed policy.
The Republicans have gotten themselves into a situation where there is no good solution. Your solutions, Democratic-LIte, is just one road to failure.
Post again when you have a successful policy to suggest. We are busy in CT electing candidates at the gun club, the Italian club, the Polish club and the sewing club.
Transcend Bush is the proper technique. You can’t run away from the war or from Bush, but you can insist that Bush is not relevant, which he isn’t.
Insisting on change and dominating the narrative is the proper technique. However, running away from Bush only makes Bush more important a tool to the D’s.
McCain: “With all due respect, my opinion of President Bush matters about as much as my opinion of President Coolidge.”
I don’t see how McCain can pretend that Bush is irrelevant to the 2008 race. It won’t work. The media will constantly ask McCain about Bush. He would be better served being proactive and aggressively talking about areas where his policies can be differentiated from the president (such as the environment).
I couldn’t agree more. Run on Bush’s record!
sorry guys, you spent the last eight years vigorously, and sometimes viciously, defending every hare-brained bit of nonsense Bush put forward. to distance yourselves from Bush is to distance yourselves from your own record. and that applies to everyone from lowly bloggers to the most-senior Senator in DC.
maybe you’ll know better, next time.
Of course, when it can be pointed out point-by-point that McCain’s policies couldn’t be more like Bush’s, I think y’all are screwed.
When I hit the ground running in 2009, I look forward to serving with President McCain
trying to fix everything we screwed up over the last 8 years.
Yeah - that’s the ticket.
The Republican Party must be linked to Bush’s failure because they have supported him and championed his policies in lockstep for the past seven and a half years. From Iraq, to torture, the massive tax cuts for oil companies and the rich rich — all of these horrid failures were were sanctioned delivered by the Republican Congress. Many of the worst individuals — DeLay, Hastert, Frist — we are now rid of. McCain, despite his rhetoric, has ultimately sided with the Bush Administration on almost all key issues, including his infamous vote in support of Bush’s continued illegal torture practices.
So far, McCain’s basic theme is his continuation of all of the Bush Administration’s economic and foreign policies. So, how can he be seen as an alternative to the last eight years of hell?
It may be too late for Republicans to desert the sinking Bush ship now, but if they had started doing so right after the 2004 election, they would have had a fighting chance for survival in 2006 and this year. That’s why I wrote my Impostor book.
You really have to look deeper within the Republican Party to see why it’s gone so far off the rails. The influence of the religious crazies is what did it. They are the Republican Party’s answer to the unions during their heyday in the Democratic Party.
Every Republican has to kiss the ring of some Baptist whackjob or he doesn’t stand a chance within the party. Bush has been the whackjob-in-chief in a party filled to the brim with whackjobs, so the idea that the Republicans would have “distanced” itself from that crew is as credible, as say, John F. Kennedy throwing Mayor Daley under the bus in October 1960.
I don’t see any solution for this. The Republicans are stuck with what they have, and the result is pretty much told in the stars. Your side is going to lose another 30 or more seats this fall, and the presidency. You might as well go out with a bang rather than a whimper.
It’s nice to see that Stuart Rothenberg agrees that it’s too late for the Republicans to fix anything. So, come on. Go out on a low note. Be yourselves, only more so!
Here’s the best one yet: Compare McBush to Jesus Christ. Even by Republican standards that’s pretty pathetic, wouldn’t you say?
“Every Republican has to kiss the ring of some Baptist whackjob or he doesn’t stand a chance within the party”
Forget about UCC whackjobs? Or is that just not a “legitimate issue”?
http://radiovice.blogspot.com/2008/05/i-hate-that-jesus-stuff-from.html
The picture is priceless. Whadda stooge!
While the party is struggling, the numbers show a very real shot for Senator McCain to win the presidency. McCain and the Republicans have a tricky tightrope walk to do not trash Bush, but acknowlege the public’s frustration with him. McCain is uniquely suited to do this, but it will still be difficult.
I guess Patrick is clearly demonstrating through his blog why the Republicans are in such trouble. Instead of paying attention to his blog, he is out working to inprove his personal career chances. Instead of following through with ideas, he finds it easy to come up with new gimmicks that he leaves to others. Instead of being coherent in his beliefs, he chases the latest gimmicks.
I wonder what he will do for a job are the Republicans complete their death spiral. I guess a government civil service job in the coming one party state would be a good place. Isn’t that were people who cannot follow through on anything go to work?
I find it amusing that these lefties ASSume we’re all “running away from Bush.” Wrong. But see, unlike y’all, we can support Bush AND support others who aren’t clones. I would have supported Rudy Giuliani just as I’d have supported Duncan Hunter (neither were my first choice, but that’s beside the point), and neither of the two are like Bush or like one another. The point is, they’re both right on the important issues.
You silly lefties can keep yammering about how McCain is “McSame” all you want, but it won’t make it so, and no serious person who isn’t permanently brain-damaged by BDS believes it to be true. Sorry, but Goebbels is dead, and you can’t use his revisionist tactics (keep repeating until it becomes truthy) in this day and age.
I think it’s hilarious that the entire Democrat election strategery is based on two obvious falsehoods (”McSame” and “100 year war”). Thanks for admitting you’ve got nothing!
;)
Thanks for admitting you’ve got nothing!
Gotta love the classic projection.
This is ready for The Onion.
Don’t change a word.
I voted for George Bush and I will not give up my support of anyone based on their value to me personally. We are more loyal to petty things like sports teams than we are to people and values too often.
I do believe that the Bush Administration talked about Iraq endlessly and made it the issue it is today. They failed to position our plight against terrorism as effectively as say the Cold War was positioned and sold to the Allied world.
We need to reposition the “war” issue, which is responsible for destroying Republican credibility on the foreign policy issue- always a strength of our’s- now gone.
I also don’t believe Bush is a true conservative. I think the whole family has been more centrist and if they played that up they would be growing the dynasty instead of circling the wagons.
I have the utmost respect for each and everyone of them and appreciate their great service to our nation.
But the page turns as much as the Dems will try to remind voters of some costly tactical and strategic failures.
[…] Perhaps they should walk away from Bush, but that’s tricky, as Patrick Ruffini argues: […]
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