The hilarious gang at The Onion, whose satire of the news hits a little too close to home, seems to have beaten the New York Times to the same story — Bush is a better campaigner than president.
As Paul Waldman noted, The Onion — in parody form — highlighted Bush’s true strength over the weekend.
Military and political strategists agreed Monday that President Bush’s re-election campaign has been executed with greater precision than the war in Iraq. “Judging from the initial misrepresentation of intelligence data and the ongoing crisis in Najaf, I assumed the president didn’t know his ass from his elbow,” said Col. Dale Henderson, a military advisor during the Reagan Administration. “But on the campaign trail, he’s proven himself a master of long-term planning and unflinching determination. How else can you explain his strength in the polls given this economy?” Henderson said he regrets having characterized Bush’s handling of the war as “incompetent,” now that he knows the president’s mind was simply otherwise occupied.
It was a great point (too good, in fact). How could a public figure be so bad at executing the duties of his office, yet be so proficient at reaching out to voters? Unintentionally, the NYT explained why The Onion piece is true — Bush is only happy when he’s away from work and out on the campaign trail.
George W. Bush says he enjoys being president. But judging from his performance on the stump over the last few weeks, he enjoys campaigning for president even more.
From rallies in Ohio to attacks on Senator John Kerry’s economic record in Pennsylvania to “Ask President Bush” events with rapturous Republican crowds, the president has emerged as a kinetic stage performer with a personality that seems to fit the frantic quality of the campaign.
In Washington, Mr. Bush delivers serious speeches, tangles with the press and can appear stolid, defensive and halting. But on the campaign trail, where the invited crowds are kept friendly because opponents are sometimes arrested for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts or dragged from events by their hair, there is a different President Bush. He is looser and livelier, a former Andover cheerleader who has learned how to rouse the crowd in the argot of ordinary America.
How reassuring. The cheerleader-in-chief is better at asking for votes than actually governing once he has them.
“I wish he was half as good a president as he is a campaigner,” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton.
Style vs. substance will be on the ballot in November. I’m not sure whether to be confident or horrified.