The problem with the Bush third term charge

Wednesday, 28th May 2008

Yesterday, Bush and McCain raised coin together but the McCain campaign tried to minimise the coverage of the event, fearful that the unpopular president could damage McCain by association. Certainly, the Obama camp thinks that Bush’s third term is their most effective attack line against McCain. But I think they underestimate how hard it will be to make this charge stick.

Most voters feel they know McCain and so can distinguish him from Bush. McCain also has enough on the record policy differences and criticisms of Bush to put more distance between the two of them as required. Take this conversation he had with Jacob Weisberg back in August 2007, which Weisberg has written about in the introduction to a new book on McCain:

"What, I asked, did he think about his new best friend George W. Bush as a leader? Why wasn't he in the book? "I think that the very significant failing was to not question the course of the war in Iraq for too long," he said. "I'm told that the president would say to the generals on the teleconference, 'Do you have everything you need?' 'Yes sir!' End of conversation! I think General Eisenhower would have said, 'Well, what about the casualties in Anbar Province? What about the suicide bombers?' He'd go down the list of challenges we were facing. 'How's it going with the de-Ba'athificaiton? What's happening with the oil revenues?' "
I noted Bush's curious quality of taking strenuous opposition as proof that he must be right. McCain concurred. "I really feel that to somehow be encouraged by opposition is not a productive exercise," McCain replied. "Because if you continue to have American public opinion opposed to our involvement in Iraq—no matter what I think the consequences of failure are—we're not going to be able to sustain it, period."

The other advantage McCain has in getting away from the Bush’s third term tag is that the White House is playing ball. Bush is clearly happy to help the McCain campaign when he can and get out of the way the rest of the time.