After all that we’ve seen, it’s nothing short of bizarre to see Bush reaching out for Democratic votes, but that’s exactly what he was doing yesterday.
As the campaign winds down to a few precious days, the president, accompanied by the first lady, drew more than 8,000 supporters to a dusty old hangar at Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport on Wednesday afternoon.
It was clear that President Bush came to this postage stamp of a town, just outside of Youngstown, to fish for Democrats.
In his nearly hourlong speech, after being introduced by Youngstown Mayor George McKelvey and U.S. Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga. — two of the most vocal and visible of the Bush Democrats — the president dropped the names of Democratic presidents.
I strongly believe this was a ridiculous waste of time, in more ways than one. There’s the obvious problem that Dems overwhelmingly oppose the president’s campaign and are unlikely to be swayed by a few references to JFK and FDR.
Then there’s the more practical problem. The event at the airport hangar was just like all BC04 events — tickets were only offered to Republicans and distributed exclusively through the local GOP. As CBS reported this morning:
“There were no Democrats at any of those rallies where the President made that plea [for Dem support]. Those are ticketed events for supporters only.”
So, Bush was reaching out for Democratic support to an exclusively Republican audience where Democrats were unwelcome. Classic.