I agree that Bush seldom went directly to the people. Part of it is I think he felt he was a doer, not a talker (whereas Obama seems a talker but not a doer). But another factor, frankly, was the hostile media. It seemed everytime he went before the media, they changed the focus from his message to his style of message. Furthermore, the Republican Party pretty much abandoned him once he became a lame duck way back in 2004. Obama has the media and apparently a fairly good alternate channel through the internet and cellphone numbers he gathered during his campaign. He also has alternate organizations such as ACORN and MoveOn pushing for him. The conservatives haven’t organized means outside the media to get out the information about their campaigns and causes. To what extent that is Bush’s fault is anyone’s guess.
I agree that Bush wasn’t an orator. The press hated Reagan too but he was a speaker. I still think that Bush needed to be out there more. Maybe better speech writers would have helped, I don’t know. I do know that his “Uniter not a divider” hurt him. Bush expected co-operation even after it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. He was too NICE.