Posted on 08/16/2011 6:37:15 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Gibbs: 'We're not running against George W. Bush' By Michael O'Brien - 08/16/11 08:24 AM ET
President Obama's reelection campaign isn't running against the specter of former President George W. Bush, said a top voice for the president's 2012 campaign.
Robert Gibbs, the former White House press secretary-turned-campaign surrogate, accused the field of Republican presidential candidates of reviving the policies that caused the current economic difficulties. But that doesn't mean the Obama campaign's running against Bush, Gibbs maintained.
"We're not running against George W. Bush," he said on MSNBC, explaining that it's just many of the policies of Bush "But many of the policies that got us into the mess that we're trying to dig out of now, are the same policies that the frontrunners for the Republican nomination seek to go back to."
"You're going have a choice between going forward or going backward to a lot of the problems that got us into this mess," Gibbs said, referencing a top tier of GOP candidates that includes Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). "I think there's going to be a very clear choice in this election in 2012."
For that matter, Perry, the candidate who is arguably more liable to be measured against Bush than any other candidates because of their Texas roots and shared mannerisms, has also taken strides to distance himself from the former Republican president.
"They’re not all carbon copies in Texas," he said on Fox News. "I tell people that one of the quick ways you can tell the difference is he is a Yale graduate and I’m a Texas A&M graduate."
Democrats faced allegations of running against Bush in their 2010 campaign against congressional Republicans, when they similarly argued that electing the GOP would mean a return to Bush-era policies.
Gibbs also sought to tie the frontrunners for the Republican nomination of "pledging allegiance to the Tea Party," picking up on the Democratic narrative rolled out in decent days to cast the party's standard-bearers as beholden to the party's activist base.
Gibbs also took a couple of pointed jabs at Perry, the most recent entrant into the race, for his past statements flirting with Texas seceding from the United States.
"I think that the statements that Perry made are remarkable in the sense that, just two years ago, the governor of Texas openly talking about leading Texas out of the United States of America," Gibbs said. "I think it's a remarkable turnaround and I think, any day now, I think Rick Perry will probably ask to see the president's birth certificate."
Hahahaha! He’s been running against GWB for the past 5 years!
Gibbs “should be drug tested for such crazy talk”.
Well, YOU’RE the ones who keep bringing him up!
LOL! So Gibbs is working on Zero’s campaign. That should go over well, he’s such a likeable person!
/sarc
Gibbs is absolutely perfect for this job. Keep chattering Bobby. Dig, dig, dig.
The Obama team is going to run against Congress. It’s the only group that is more hated than the Obama administration at this point.
The question is, can Pravda and the White Hut successfully convince the independents that Congress = GOP. A thoughtful person would laugh at such an assertion, since the GOP only controls the House, and only since the beginning of this year. However, many independents are not thoughtful. It’s even money that Pravda can get it done.
For once I agree with Robert Gibbs!
They are going to mischaracterize the Tea Party and then claim the Republicans have aligned themselves with a ‘radical minority’. That’s what they will run against. That is all they have. There is nothing from the first, and prayerfully final, Obama term they can run on. They have to be against something and the Tea Party is what they and many many rinos and many many media a$$holes fear.
...., but we STILL blame him for our troubles.
MSNBC’s latest slogan is “Lean forward”. What’s that supposed to mean...bow to the chief?
What a bunch of clowns! and people still vote for these donkeys
When I read that Leg Tingle Matthews said the newspapers would use ‘all their money’ to investigate Perry, I had hopes that someone would ask him why that was never done to Obama.
Sort of a rhetorical question, I guess.
Then they have no HOPE.
More like Jimmah Carter or Herbet Hoover!!!
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