[Arm_Bears]

By trying to remain “Presidential” and above the fray, George W. Bush allowed the Left to control the narrative for much of his presidency. Current Republican “leaders” in Congress are following his example.

Unless, and until, the GOP starts pushing back, we’re in for more of what we have now.

[armydawg505]

So long as the national Republicans are tone deaf to their voters, this problem will continue. Voters have no reason to elect Republicans who act like Democrats, they just go ahead and vote for the Democrats.

[cuban leaf]

The only thing Bush did that I really approved of was invade Iraq. And my motives were that I thought he would make it a “permanent US presence” like we put in Germany after WWII. And it would make, for decades, a killing field for any muslims mad at the “great satan” and they could sacrifice their life for allah against our troops there rather than in american shopping malls.

Obama kinda messed that up. And here we are.

[cdcdawg]

Absolutely correct. Bush allowed himself to be savaged, following the sage advice of Karl Rove and his own instincts. Even so, things didn’t really go to hell until he abandoned his base via immigration and Harriet Miers for the SC. Then his base abandoned him. The reason Bush and the current Congressional leadership don’t fight harder for our values is because they don’t share them, once those values have served the purpose of getting them elected.

[tanknetter]

By trying to remain “Presidential” and above the fray, George W. Bush allowed the Left to control the narrative for much of his presidency. Current Republican “leaders” in Congress are following his example.

Correct.

Stan Greenberg (Clinton's pollster, husband of Rep. Rosa DeLauro) did a study several years back showing that the Tea Party Movement had started out with very much a small government/fiscal Conservative core of supports (which could be seen as more Libertarian-leaning than Social Conservatives), but that Social Conservatives had flocked to it because it was the one thing seen as putting up a real fight in the early days of the Obama Administration.

The same thing is driving a lot of the support right now for Scott Walker (who I like, but am still non-committal about supporting at the moment), who took on the Left (repeatedly) and won (repeatedly).