Romney seizing the Bush mantle?

December 20, 2007

After a full year of Republican presidential candidates avoiding references to Bush and promising voters change, this past weekend featured an odd fight between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee over who valued the incumbent president more.

Apparently, this wasn’t accident. Romney, in particular, is searching for a strategy to help bolster his campaign, and has decided seizing the Bush mantle may pay dividends.

ABC News’ John Berman Reports: Standing on the banks of the chilly Mississippi River in Davenport, Iowa, Mitt Romney gave a great big political bear-hug to President Bush. Praising the president’s foreign policy, Romney said, “I believe that our president has acted in good faith, and in an effort to protect his country, and do everything in his power to keep America safe.”

Bush has been without majority public support for 35 months straight, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released in December, with only 33 percent approving of the president’s job performance. So, why would a candidate show so much love for a president so low in public opinion polls?

Well, the first reason is, apparently, to draw a distinction with Huckabee, who is now comfortably in the lead in the Iowa, and who criticized the president for having an “arrogant bunker mentality” when it comes to foreign policy.

And the second, is because there’s a Republican niche audience who no one seems to be talking to: those odd folks who think Bush is a fine president and wonder why no one wants to seize his mantle.

The AP noted:

With the first test approaching quickly, Romney made a play Wednesday for Republican faithful with his praise for Bush.

While Romney acknowledged that the administration made mistakes in the course of the Iraq war, he said Bush’s troop-increase strategy is the right one and “these mistakes were not made out of arrogance or a bunker mentality” — countering Huckabee.

“The president is a person who is deeply devoted to this country and doing what’s right for this country, and protecting American lives,” Romney said.

All year, Republican presidential candidates have walked a careful line in how they’ve spoken of Bush.

And now, at least one of these candidates is trying to cross that line.

Should Romney get the GOP nomination, his embrace of the least popular president in modern political history should be the gift that keeps on giving.

Wow, just how desparate will Romney get? Perhaps we can get him to come out with a pro-gerbil position if we persuade him that there is a bloc of undecided gerbiliacs available?

Who’s willing to promise him a vote if he actually bends over and kisses his own ass on TV?

  • Romney acknowledged that the administration made mistakes in the course of the Iraq war…

    That’s more than Bush will acknowledge.

    “These mistakes were not made out of arrogance or a bunker mentality…”

    It was probably just stupidity and incompetence. Surely the arrogance and the bunker mentality had nothing to do with it.

  • Trust me, folks, the Republicans who wish the 22nd Amendment was gone and they could vote a third time for Little Georgie and the Dick-tator is a more significant part of the Republican party than those Dems who wanted to vote for Bill Clinton a third time. I know, you wonder how someone that dumb could get through a day, but they really are out there. They’re the anvil Romney wants to wear while trying to fly, proving that “remove the second ‘m'” is how you understand this particular Mormon.

  • Mitt the Twitt will say ANYTHING to get elected. Belive me, I live in MA and this guy is as phonie as they come. We have Mitt the Twitt bumper stickers around here!

  • Watching the GOP primaries unfold is making for great political theater. The longer four candidates have a legitimate shot at the nomination and no one emerges as a front-runner, the longer they’ll be climbing over each other to appear more batshit insane than the others. The best of all worlds would be a Huck win in Iowa, followed by Romney in NH and McCain in SC, or any variation. They’ll tear each other apart. Maybe even Rudy will get in a few parting shots as he sinks into oblivion (or somehow rise like Nosferatu and make things really interesting). It’s as if the DNC designed the perfect GOP primary, with the end result being one seriously wounded candidate mortally tied to the far-right of the party. Pass the popcorn!

  • let the word go forth — from this time and place — that the shitbucket has been passed to mitt-flop!

  • “…his embrace of the least popular president in modern political history should be the gift that keeps on giving.”

    I think the most important point is not that Romney is embracing an unpopular President (although that is true), but that he is embracing an incompetent, unread, mendacious, unprincipled, and unsympathetic President.

  • Cheney out – Romney in???? Let’s see, GHWB hosted Romney’s religion speech and now Willard is heaping praise on all things GWB with only 13 months left to turn overwhelming public disapproval into some sort of legacy.

    The departures of perceived divisives like Rove, Roberto G. and Rummy have not done much for GWB’s numbers. Therefore, could it be that the GOP elders and corporately funded right wing think tanks are working on a Cheney departure, possibly before Super Tuesday, and GWB announces Romney as his V.P. selection? Remember that scene from the opening ceremonies at the Winter Olympics in UTAH???

    I think I’ve seen this movie before and the sequel could be released sooner than we think.

    Bless our Military and Merry Christmas to All !

    I’m “JB the Pundit” and I approved this message.

  • Since it is Rudy who is sucking in all the Neo-con theorists to teach him foreign policy incompetence, he is the real heir to the Bushite mantel.

    Romney, say what he might, just can’t match that.

  • Bush supporters are the same crowd that will take the party oath, and take a flip-flop shoe and beat themselves on the butt, stand and shout Kerry is a slut if told to. Democrats would say WTF, you gotta be kiddin’ to such instructions. Just being part of the party is the ‘only’ important thing. Whatever the party says or tells them to say is right. They just smile and follow along with all the other “well-to-do” members without a clue as to what the actual policies are…
    A “Money Party” by any other name. It’s almost impossible to find a single piece of legislation passed in the last 12yrs that benefited only the people and not the corporations. Nearly everything is done to the benefit of the corporations. Only now when the average American is struggling to keep from being wiped out are we beginning to see what has been really going on.
    For instance the Bush supporter doesn’t believe or is even concerned that if something major isn’t done to deal with global warming before 2012 we will be not be able to reverse it’s effects. But is Bush turned around and said this was a serious problem and must be dealt with they would follow right along. When will they be able to discern these things for themselves and not follow blindly along.

    Republicans right now are just trying to get the least embarrassing candidate to be their nomination and that is not saying much. Just look at their choices. Because they know they will lose the general no matter who the nomination they are seeking the least embarrassing path. Romney is praising Bush’s intentions, motivations, and personality…not his decisions. He’s even totally mistaken on these as well. Shamelessly pandering for votes… again . Bush meant well…Hukabee bad. What a goober.

  • Tom’s correct–if Bush could run for a third term, he’d certainly get his party’s nomination.

    Majorities of both the Greed Wing and the God Wing continue to support him. Nobody in the current crew of Republican jerks running can say the same. Romney is trying to get by with pluralities in both groups; as Il Douche fades, he’s got the Greeders, and he just needs enough of the God Squad to undermine Huckabee.

  • “Mitt the Twit” Romney has hammered Huckabee unmercifully for minor concessions to the children of those who may have crossed the border illegally. Yet he has wrapped himself in the Bush mantle…. Just a moment! Has any Republican been more conciliatory to the cause of the illegal then the current president?

  • You’re right – it IS hard to criticize the the person who is single handedly responsible for the next depression that will be sweeping the country a year or so from now when he’s safely out of office. The person who added TRILLIONS to our national debt and committed us to TRILLIONS more keeping Iraq safe from terrorism (HAH!) when 20 of the 24 9-11 hijackers were SAUDI. The guy who made the whole Islamic world unite against us, sure be hard to find fault with that. Good thing Romney supports him – the rotten little sneaks should all be readily identifiable. He’s probably using his warrantless wiretapping now to help Romney campaign. Any Republican with a shred of integrity would have Bush impeached and imprisoned for his war crimes partly, but mostly for his crimes against the Constitution! Support the Constitution – Vote Ron Paul!

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  • MORMONS: (The Encyclopedia Britannica, Thirteenth Edition, London, vol. 18, pp. 843-844, 1926)…. “Rigdon… made a new translation of the Bible, in which prophecies of the coming of Joseph Smith and the nature of The Book of Mormon are inserted in the 50th chapter of Genesis and the 20th chapter of Isaiah respectively…. the church was “persecuted”… on the 25th of March 1832 Smith and Rigdon were tarred and feathered at Hiram….In 1836 the Kirtland Safety Society Bank was organized (in accordance with a “revelation” to Smith)…. In March 1837 Rigdon and Smith, the secretary and treasurer, were charged with violating the state law against unchartered banks, and they were convicted in October…. In November the “bank” suspended payments and… Smith and Rigdon left the state for Missouri…. [After a] determined attempt to depose Smith… there was organized… a band… bound to secrecy under penalty of death, and formed to punish all who opposed the Church and its supreme head. Numerous crimes and outrages were attributed to them…. On the 4th of July 1838 Rigdon preached his “salt sermon” … urging his hearers to wage “a war of extermination” on those who disturbed them…. and necessitated the calling out of the state militia…. Smith and Rigdon with others were arrested and imprisoned on a charge of treason, murder, and felony… In 1842 Smith was charged with instigating and attempt… to assassinate ex-Governor L. W. Boggs of Missouri…. There seems to have been no secret about Smith’s cohabiting with other women…. he had a revelation expressly establishing and approving polygamy.”

    http://popularapostasy.blogspot.com/2008/01/tar-and-feathers.html

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