Answering the ‘George Bush Question’
Stuart Rothenberg has been covering elections for a long time. Still, that doesn’t guarantee that he always asks the right questions. He clearly didn’t ask the right question in this article:
Democrats ran against Herbert Hoover for decades. Republicans ran against Jimmy Carter for years. Can Democrats make 2010 another referendum on George W. Bush, or at least use the unpopular former president to demonize Republicans in competitive races?
At this point, it’s difficult to picture people caring that much about former President Bush. At this point, it isn’t difficult picturing people passionately disagreeing with President Obama’s agenda. I’ll be paying more attention to how many Democrats distance themselves from President Obama.
President Obama attacked Jim DeMint yesterday for saying that government-run health care might be President Obama’s Waterloo. I’m not alone in thinking that Sen. DeMint is right, that defeating government-run health care might start an extensive losing streak for President Obama. Nothing will cause Democrats to distance themselves from President Obama than the perception that President Obama’s policies are unpopular.
The DSCC put out a new ad trying to tie Rob Portman to President Bush:
Last week, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released a Web video, “Insider,” and an accompanying press release hanging the former president around the neck of former Rep. Rob Portman (R-OH). Democratic insiders say that the video was a response to Portman’s invitation for voters to look at his record.
The time-tested rules are that elections are (a) a referendum on the sitting president and (b) about the future. While it’s possible Democrats might pick of a seat or two using the Bush boogeyman, it strikes me that the DSCC’s strategy is a defensive strategy. It can’t plausibly be argued this strategy is about a compelling vision of the future.
On the other hand, it’s entirely plausible to criticize Democrats using this message as negativists. The Republican’s counterpunches should be to say that this is just the Democrats’ desperation bubbling to the surface because (a) they don’t have an appealing message on the economy and (b) they want to distract voters from the economic disaster that they’ve helped create.
If Republicans use these time-tested tactics, the ‘George Bush Question’ will be muted, if not irrelevant.
Technorati Tags: Economy, President Obama, Bailouts, Deficits, Health Care, Reform, Democrats, President Bush, Rob Portman, Republicans, Election 2010
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Unfortunately GW is partly to blame for the mess we’re in. It was his TARP bill, and he didn’t have the intestinal fortitude to take on the donks and his own party about interfering with the banking/housing markets or overspending.
That said, it will be easy to hang a minimum of 2 trillion dollar debt on the donks in the coming election, something that even the deepest cow-eyed MSM Obama worshipper can understand is unsustainable, unscrupulous and incredibly irresponsible.
At least it will be if we don’t have a bunch of McCain-lites joining in a sprendthrift lovefest for His Hollowness.