Last Thursday, the media were all abuzz about one of their favorite talking points, about how the immediate past President of the United States was a horrible, no good very bad man — and people just didn’t like him.
Take a gander at this image from AOL/HuffPo heralding the results of a new CNN poll:
You can bet that the headline writers were just salivating at the chance to write that headline. The same folks who, when showing the economic statistics of his administration report only the job losses at the end, but somehow forget to point out the relatively sound economy for the better part of his term — and the Democratic Congress in place when it went south.
“How might this play out in this year’s presidential election?” wonders Phil Pruitt of Yahoo! News’s The Ticket. “Don’t be surprised if the Obama campaign mentions the name of George W. Bush at every opportunity, and don’t be surprised if that strategy works,” answers CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
And does Mr. Holland have data showing that strategy works? Or evidence that any president every won reelection running against his predecessor? Why doesn’t Yahoo! inquire into Obama’s “need” to whine about the problems he inherited?
That might require a little more work than dancing with the delight at the bad poll numbers of a favorite media bogeyman — one who, unlike a Mr. J. Carter, doesn’t put himself perpetually in front of the cameras trying to buttress his image.
UPDATE: Three years and (nearly) five months into his term, Obama is still whining about the problems he fought so hard to fix:
The president also said that Republicans, not Democrats, caused the current budget crisis. “I love listening to these guys give us lectures about debt and deficits. I inherited a trillion dollar deficit!” he said. Obama compared Republicans to a person who orders a steak dinner and martini and then, “just as you’re sitting down, they leave, and accuse you of running up the tab.”
Um, actually, Mr. Obama, you asked them to leave and then proceeded to run up the tab even further than they had.
I don’t see how hating on Bush can work as a successful strategy for Obama. If he wants to win, he’s going to have to better than that. And, Romney must continue to stay his course and take no diversionary bait, if he wants to win. This is going to be a close election. Every decision made by the candidates count. It will be really interesting to see how this plays out.
Good point. I’m trying to come up with even one President who won re-election by running against the guy from over 4 years ago.
Reagan ’84 was a largely positive campaign. To the extent that Carter comparisons came up, the Democrats brought it on themselves by picking Carter’s VP – who called for higher taxes and unilateral disarmament, some of the worst Democrat stereotypes. It would be as if Cheney were the 2012 Republican nominee, and then he called for (say) the execution of every prisoner at Guantanamo. (Which he never would; it’s just to illustrate the outlandishness.)
Oh, let’s not get all misty-eyed over W. The fact is, from 2003-2007, he had a Republican Congress to work with, and instead of reducing and reforming Government, Bush expanded it vastly, with help from the likes of Tom DeLay and Trent Lott. I don’t need to repeat the litany of Big Government initiatives under GWB from No Child Left Behind to Medicare Part D to bans on incandescent lightbulbs. Bush had a chance to reform domestic Government and he blew it in the name of bipartisanship. If the left wasn’t deranged, it would be thrilled with the expansion of Government under Bush. (In fairness, some of Bush’s good policies — like appointing constructionist judges and opening ANWR to oil exploration — were sabotaged by John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and the usual RINO collaborators. Our energy situation would be much different if we were getting oil from ANWR now. Thanks, McCain, you SOB.)
The notion that no one named Bush should ever be elected president again is one of the few things the left and I agree on. It’s a testament to Obama’s miserable failure that he makes W look good.
V, nice to see you back!