lily
02-18-2008, 03:14 PM
This is going to be rather an odd poll. We all knew that sooner or later Bush was going to campaign for McCain. This poll is going to be about something that struck me as extrememly odd. Instead of calling Bush President Bush, they refer to him as Mr. Bush. Do you think this is to downplay his last 7 years and to make him an asset to McCain instead of a hinderence? I think no matter what side of the political aisle you are on, we can all agree that this is really a sign of disrespect. But if not, I will mkae it a multiple poll and you can vote on both. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23218001/)
For McCain, a choice on a role for Bush
Can senator win over conservatives, independents and moderate Dems?
POLITICAL MEMO
By Elisabeth Bumiller
updated 3:06 a.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain’s campaign advisers will ask the White
House to deploy President Bush for major Republican fund-raising, but they
do not want the president to appear too often at his side, top aides to Mr.
McCain said Sunday.
After a weekend of strategy meetings at Mr. McCain’s Arizona ranch — in a
sense, the first Sedona summit of the Republican Party’s new leadership —
the advisers said that much remains undecided about coordinating the
campaign with the White House and the party apparatus until Mr. McCain wins
enough delegates to be the official nominee.
But even as the consensus was that Mr. McCain needed to “stand in the sun”
on his own, as one adviser put it, without the large shadow cast by Mr.
Bush, left unsaid was the difficult calculus the McCain campaign faces:
Using Mr. Bush enough to try to make the tough sell of Mr. McCain to
conservatives but not so much that he will drive away the independents and
some moderate Democrats that Mr. McCain is counting on in November.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been using every opportunity to link Mr. McCain
to Mr. Bush, even defining Mr. McCain’s candidacy as part of a “Bush-McCain”
ticket that they say will essentially give the president another term.
There is also the matter of Mr. Bush’s unpopularity — polls show that only
about 30 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as president.
And though he remains relatively popular among Republicans, even there his
approval rating has declined to 66 percent.
Mr. McCain’s advisers rushed to insist that they were not running away from
the president, but rather that they would be reluctant to have any sitting
president campaign with Mr. McCain.
“What an incumbent president can do is help a new nominee with fund-raisers,
maybe with unifying the party, maybe with getting out the vote in Republican
areas,” said Charles Black, a top adviser to Mr. McCain and an outside
adviser to the White House who has been part of every Republican
presidential campaign since 1976. “But the important thing to remember is,
the nominee is on their own. And no president, no matter how popular and
effective politically, can carry somebody.”
For McCain, a choice on a role for Bush
Can senator win over conservatives, independents and moderate Dems?
POLITICAL MEMO
By Elisabeth Bumiller
updated 3:06 a.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 18, 2008
WASHINGTON - Senator John McCain’s campaign advisers will ask the White
House to deploy President Bush for major Republican fund-raising, but they
do not want the president to appear too often at his side, top aides to Mr.
McCain said Sunday.
After a weekend of strategy meetings at Mr. McCain’s Arizona ranch — in a
sense, the first Sedona summit of the Republican Party’s new leadership —
the advisers said that much remains undecided about coordinating the
campaign with the White House and the party apparatus until Mr. McCain wins
enough delegates to be the official nominee.
But even as the consensus was that Mr. McCain needed to “stand in the sun”
on his own, as one adviser put it, without the large shadow cast by Mr.
Bush, left unsaid was the difficult calculus the McCain campaign faces:
Using Mr. Bush enough to try to make the tough sell of Mr. McCain to
conservatives but not so much that he will drive away the independents and
some moderate Democrats that Mr. McCain is counting on in November.
Democrats, meanwhile, have been using every opportunity to link Mr. McCain
to Mr. Bush, even defining Mr. McCain’s candidacy as part of a “Bush-McCain”
ticket that they say will essentially give the president another term.
There is also the matter of Mr. Bush’s unpopularity — polls show that only
about 30 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as president.
And though he remains relatively popular among Republicans, even there his
approval rating has declined to 66 percent.
Mr. McCain’s advisers rushed to insist that they were not running away from
the president, but rather that they would be reluctant to have any sitting
president campaign with Mr. McCain.
“What an incumbent president can do is help a new nominee with fund-raisers,
maybe with unifying the party, maybe with getting out the vote in Republican
areas,” said Charles Black, a top adviser to Mr. McCain and an outside
adviser to the White House who has been part of every Republican
presidential campaign since 1976. “But the important thing to remember is,
the nominee is on their own. And no president, no matter how popular and
effective politically, can carry somebody.”