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G.W. was MIA
Townhall.com ^ | November 15, 2012 | Michael Reagan

Posted on 11/15/2012 7:41:40 AM PST by Kaslin

Democrats have been blaming George W. Bush for the last four years.

Now I think it's time for Republicans to start blaming George W. for the next four years.

For a week we've been pinning last week's debacle on everything from Mitt Romney's moderation to low Republican turnout.

But the most important Republican who didn't turn out to support Romney this fall was George W. Bush.

You can make an honest argument that G.W. was as much to blame as anyone else for our being unable to defeat an incompetent incumbent of historic proportions.

For four years Barack Obama has blamed the Great Recession on G.W. and used his presidency as his excuse for why the economy is taking so long to get fixed.

And where's G.W. been? MIA or AWOL, take your pick.

He didn't show up at the GOP convention. He didn't become an enthusiastic surrogate for Romney in a handful of swing states where a few hundred thousand more Republican voters could have changed history. He didn't stump for senatorial candidates in contested states such as Virginia and Montana.

G.W., the ex-cheerleader, was nowhere to be seen or heard during Romney's campaign. What's worse, he didn't even defend his own economic record. He let the conservatives on talk radio and at Fox News do it.

The trouble is talk radio and Fox only reach about 20 million people during a week - and most of them are already in the conservative Republican choir.

Last I checked, 121 million Americans voted on Election Day. That left us Republicans with 101 million people who still needed to hear our message about who's really to blame for the broken economy of 2008 to 2012.

We griped and moaned and pointed to Obama, but the mainstream liberal media were too busy protecting their hero to fairly tell our side of the story.

The only way conservatives can get the national news media to deliver our message to the American people is to go over the media's heads. And the only people who can do that consistently are ex-presidents of the USA.

Bill Clinton became Obama's best propaganda weapon. When Clinton claimed that no one, not even a super-genius like him, could have solved the economic problem G.W. Bush left Obama within four years, every voter in America heard it.

Even Jimmy Carter was hauled out of mothballs to help the Democrat cause.

The 2012 campaign was all about "the economy, stupid." Obama blamed G.W. and Republicans. Plus, he had Clinton and Carter bashing G.W.'s record with their bully sticks every day and countering Romney's arguments that Obama was to blame.

We should have had G.W. standing up and saying, "This is bull. I'm tired of this. This is what I did or did not do with the economy as president. The real culprits are Dodd & Frank and four years of Obama's failed policies."

Instead G.W. stayed quiet, even on the issue of Benghazi. Because he refused to show up and defend himself and his record, the Republican Party had to take arrows for him and we lost our second presidential election in a row.

The question I'd like to ask my fellow conservative Republicans is, if G.W. isn't willing to stand up for his own presidency, why the heck should we?


TOPICS: Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012election; barackobama; georgewbush; jimmycarter
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To: zeestephen

Very good points. Well said.

I simply do not understand his retisence and his apparent lack of awareness as to the serious problems this has caused.


81 posted on 11/15/2012 12:16:36 PM PST by Obadiah (Americans said, "Give us Barabbas!")
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To: Liberty Valance

I needed a good laugh today. Thanks, LV :)


82 posted on 11/15/2012 12:23:02 PM PST by Jane Long ("Miss me yet?" - Mitt)
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To: Kaslin

When Republicans leave the presidency, they go home and live a life....democrats cannot stop being political, Bush 1 and 2 didn’t stay in politics, Ford didn’t either...Nixon stayed out of politics as did Reagon before he developed Alzheimers.....Carter cannot shut up, neigher can Clinton. Its their blood and they die without politics..


83 posted on 11/15/2012 12:28:22 PM PST by goat granny
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To: Kaslin
Bush never bothered to defend his administration's policies, and his country's interests, when he was president. Why expect him to do now what he couldn't be bothered doing then?
84 posted on 11/15/2012 12:42:24 PM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: mbarker12474
The trouble is talk radio and Fox only reach about 20 million people during a week - and most of them are already in the conservative Republican choir.

Instead of spending a billion on a presidential campaign, some of that should be spent marketing talk radio and FOX. I've seen people convert from Democrat to Republican over time after starting to watch FOX inparticular.

First think we should do is all get a bumper sticker for our local conservative talk station and slap it on.

85 posted on 11/15/2012 1:16:46 PM PST by JediJones (Newt Gingrich warned us that the "King of Bain" was unelectable. Did you listen?)
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To: zeestephen
But in a free country where the Hard Left MSM sets the agenda and the terms of debate, the silence of George W. Bush has been an unmitigated catastrophe.

I believe it was revealed that it was Karl Rove's strategy to have Bush not respond to the attacks on him in the media and from the left. Likewise, we saw Rove's SuperPAC this year not do anything to respond to the attacks against Mitt Romney. Rove's an old fool who can't learn new tricks. He's done a lot to lose 3 of the last 4 elections for us.

86 posted on 11/15/2012 2:41:00 PM PST by JediJones (Newt Gingrich warned us that the "King of Bain" was unelectable. Did you listen?)
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To: dfwgator

Have his back for what? Amnesty? TARP? Auto bailouts? Medicare Part D?


87 posted on 11/15/2012 2:56:35 PM PST by Fledermaus (The Republic is Dead: Collapse the system. Let the Dems destroy the economy!)
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To: Fledermaus

Social Security privatization for one.


88 posted on 11/15/2012 2:57:43 PM PST by dfwgator
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To: dfwgator

Okay, you got me on that one.


89 posted on 11/15/2012 3:01:39 PM PST by Fledermaus (The Republic is Dead: Collapse the system. Let the Dems destroy the economy!)
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To: griswold3

He didn’t spend his capital on entitlement reform, he spent it on trying to open the borders.


90 posted on 11/16/2012 2:39:14 AM PST by fortheDeclaration (Pr 14:34 Righteousness exalteth a nation:but sin is a reproach to any people)
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To: Kaslin

He definitely has disappeared. The biggest disaster for conservatives however was the decline and death of Reagan. Can you imagine how differently things would be if we still had him countering all the lies of carter, clintoon and obozo?


91 posted on 11/16/2012 10:47:32 AM PST by Newtoidaho (Fight organized crime. Vote out all incumbent Democrats!)
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To: Kaslin

He definitely has disappeared. The biggest disaster for conservatives however was the decline and death of Reagan. Can you imagine how differently things would be if we still had him countering all the lies of carter, clintoon and obozo?


92 posted on 11/16/2012 10:47:59 AM PST by Newtoidaho (Fight organized crime. Vote out all incumbent Democrats!)
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To: lodi90
If you can’t see that a flawed mitt romney was preferable to a hardcore marxist america hating kenyan the problem isn’t the GOP. It’s you. The same goes for anybody else that didn’t vote GOP in this last election to remove the kenyan.

Give it a break already.

The GOP-E apparently didn't learn it's lesson with John McCain and decided to double-down with someone, Mitt Romney, who doesn't have a shred of credibility where being a Republican is concerned, much less a conservative as his Progressive Liberal record as Governor of MA proves.

A candidate who proclaimed all the way up to August 27th, 2012 that he was Pro-Life, until on that day, he proclaimed he supported Abortion in the cases of Rape, Incest, Life, and HEALTH of the mother.

A candidate who supported the Gay Agenda in the following terms:

1. Gay Adoption
2. Gays in the Military
3. Gays in the Boy Scouts


Next time, if the GOP wants my vote, they need to stop with the bogey-man, the sky is falling rhetoric and provide a candidate that is not to the left of just about everyone in the GOP.

The problem with the GOP is that is does not represent conservaives. The problem with you is you are suffering from the abused wife syndrome and the next time the GOP puts up someone even worse than Mitt Romney, you'll allow them to manipulate you into voting for their jackass again.

You, my friend, are the problem.
93 posted on 11/17/2012 10:02:39 PM PST by SoConPubbie (Mitt and Obama: They're the same poison, just a different potency.)
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To: lentulusgracchus

Absolutely. Denny Hastert was a hack of the worst sort. He was the earmark king. After he fractured the Republican party with his spending. He retired I guess he figured the big was up. Later he wrote an op ed to the Sun Times decrying the use of medical marijuana. If that fat ass tried to take a joint away from me if I was going through cemo I’d kick his fat face in.


94 posted on 11/17/2012 10:16:41 PM PST by Blackirish
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To: Blackirish

Hastert also defended William Jefferson D-LA, because no doubt he was afraid of what they would find in Denny’s freezer.


95 posted on 11/17/2012 10:18:32 PM PST by dfwgator
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