Posted on 06/02/2008 7:26:22 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – President Bush was the headliner last week at three fundraisers for Sen. John McCain. But as happy as he was to accept the help to raise badly needed money, McCain did everything he could to push the unpopular president out of the headlines.
Events in Arizona and Utah were moved out of big public arenas and into private homes. The only public sighting of the two men together was the briefest of handshakes at an Arizona airport, timed late in the day after the network news broadcasts.
For Bush, it reflects his status as a lame duck with historically low approval ratings.
For McCain, it is the reality that is likely to dog him for the rest of his presidential campaign. No matter what McCain does, the presumptive Republican nominee represents a party whose public face for eight years has been Bush. He faces an unrelenting Democratic effort to cast him as a Bush clone who promises nothing less than to give the country a third term for Bush.
“How much of a drag is Bush going to be for the McCain campaign? As big as any drag can possibly be,” said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It's the backdrop for everything. It accounts for this extraordinary appetite for change. It reflects a deep discontent with the current state of affairs and it's all linked to President Bush and the Republican Party.”
McCain is walking a political tightrope. He's giving speeches to set out policy differences with the incumbent on some issues and limiting his appearances with Bush, while accepting his help and trying not to alienate the most conservative Republicans who make up the president's remaining bastion of support.
“Obviously, McCain recognizes that Bush is toxic,” said longtime Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “But he can't escape the death grip of George Bush.”
Mellman acknowledged that McCain has broken with Bush on global climate change and other environmental issues, torture and some areas of foreign policy. But he said those are overwhelmed by McCain siding with Bush on the Iraq war and tax cuts.
“On the core issues that are most important to the American people, he is lined up with Bush down the line,” Mellman said. “He is more Bush than Bush on Iraq.”
Public fatigue with two-term presidents is not unusual. There was “Reagan fatigue” in 1988 and “Clinton fatigue” in 2000 even though Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton enjoyed high public approval ratings. But it has never been more pronounced than this year, with consumer-confidence ratings plummeting, an unpopular war raging and the numbers of Americans saying the country is on a wrong track soaring.
“That incumbent fatigue has really changed to animosity and anger,” Mellman said. “They are not just tired of George Bush, they want to be rid of George Bush and be rid of the people who supported his policies. Bush is radioactive, and the truth is McCain recognizes that and that's why they limited the photos this week.”
Even the president is aware of the problem, saying that McCain wants “to distance himself from me a little bit.” When McCain met Bush at the White House three months ago, the president jokingly offered to either endorse him or oppose him if it would help more.
“Either way, I want him to win,” Bush said.
McCain's campaign brain trust is well aware of the weight they are carrying because of Bush's unpopularity.
“There is no question whatsoever that it is a bad political climate for Republicans,” said Charlie Black, McCain's senior strategist. “The Republican brand is damaged, and the president is unpopular.”
Black said McCain will counter that by noting his differences with Bush and by looking to the future.
“We'll just have to emphasize those, and every time they say, 'Bush third term,' we'll point out why it's not,” Black said. “Politics is always about the future. And if McCain was a protégé of Bush or his sitting vice president, it might be hard to get out from under that. But with this candidate, with his history and background and the differences they have on significant issues, I don't think it's hard.”
Black also said there has been smooth coordination between the campaign and the White House.
“We have a good relationship. We give each other a heads-up on whatever we're going to say in public. If it happens to be a difference of opinion, everybody is fine with it,” he said.
Black knows that the Democrats and likely nominee Sen. Barack Obama are going to press the linkage no matter what McCain does. Already, the liberal group MoveOn.org has aired a commercial mocking Bush and McCain as “Identical cousins” – the theme song of the 1960s sitcom “The Patty Duke Show.”
“The assault right now is to basically paint everybody as joined at the hip with Bush and let them talk about why they are not,” said Ohio Democratic political strategist Jerry Austin.
Rep. Tom Davis, a retiring Virginia Republican who fears this strategy will cost Republicans many seats in the House, has called Bush “absolutely radioactive” and has urged House Republican candidates “to get some separation from the president” if they want to save their seats.
Austin laughed at McCain's efforts this week to limit photos of himself with Bush even as he accepted Bush's help.
“He's trying to hug Bush while also keeping his distance from him. That is almost physically impossible, but he is trying to do that,” Austin said.
Obama rarely misses a chance to link McCain with Bush. And he delighted in the efforts to keep the president out of public view during the fundraiser in Arizona.
“No cameras. No reporters,” Obama said. “And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat-in-hand with the president, whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years.”
Pollster John Zogby, who said Bush is tied with Harry S. Truman and Richard Nixon for the lowest presidential poll numbers in history, said it would be “deadly” for McCain to be seen with Bush. But Zogby added that Democrats could overplay the talk of Bush's “third term.”
“Democrats have to go beyond that,” Zogby said. “They have to offer an alternative. They have to recognize they are not running against George Bush.”
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It does? More than a few voters might beg to differ. Altho, in self-inflicted wounds, the GoP gives the dems a good run for the money..
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gives a thumbs up as he arrives to address at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference 2008, Monday, June 2, 2008, at the Washington Convention Center in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
U.S. President George W. Bush makes remarks after the Ford's Theatre Gala at the National Theatre in Washington, DC June 1, 2008. Ford's Theater is currently closed for renovations. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts (UNITED STATES)
"I can't quit you, big guy...sniff"
Here is my ticket.
John McCain demonstrates how he "heir-hugged" President Bush at a recent fundraiser...
History will be kind to those Great Men....
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