The elephant in the convention

July 5, 2008

The Republicans are planning to throw quite a party in Minnesota in a couple of months. They’re just not quite sure what to do with the President of the United States.

Convention planners, the White House and the McCain campaign are wrestling with how to choreograph a proper send-off for Mr. Bush — sure, his poll numbers are in the tank, but he is still the party leader and president of the United States — while hustling him out the door in time for Mr. McCain to look like his own man.

“It’s a very delicate situation,” said Brian Jones, a former communications director for Mr. McCain’s campaign who also was a top communications strategist during Mr. Bush’s 2004 run for re-election. “Even though the president is the president, this is going to be John McCain’s convention, and you want it to be about John McCain and what his presidency would be.”

A convention is a pivot point, and the theatrics and imagery are often more important than the words. For Mr. McCain, of Arizona, the convention imagery will be especially important, because he must show that he wants to take the nation in a new direction, away from Mr. Bush, yet he cannot escape Mr. Bush’s dominance of Republican Party politics for the last eight years.

Funny, the Republicans weren’t worried about all of this in 1988, when they made sure to have Reagan “give oomph to the Bush candidacy,” including a choreographed embrace between the then-president and his Republican successor.

This year, the president will speak on the first night of the convention, but a Republican close to McCain and Bush said any kind of joint appearance was “highly unlikely.”

How bad is it? One Republican lawmaker was willing to concede, on the record, that he didn’t want the president to appear at the convention at all.

This year, of course, Mr. McCain is trying to escape from Mr. Bush’s shadow. Most Republicans say Mr. Bush should play whatever role Mr. McCain wants him to. Some, like Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, simply wish Mr. Bush would keep out of it, though few would say so openly.

“I don’t think there are a lot of people who want to see him at the convention,” said Mr. Rohrabacher, who is especially irked with Mr. Bush for his stance on immigration. He said the president “should stay home from the Republican convention, and everybody would be better off.”

Let’s not brush past the context of this too quickly: Rohrabacher is a scandal-plagued Republican incumbent, caught up in the Abramoff fiasco. And even he is worried about Bush showing up at the Republican convention.

It’s quite a conundrum. As the NYT reported, “If the imagery coming out of St. Paul looks like a McCain-Bush hug fest, the Arizona senator will turn off voters who are through with Mr. Bush and want to move past him. If the imagery looks like Mr. McCain is trying to file for some kind of Republican divorce, it will turn off party conservatives who are already skeptical of Mr. McCain.”

It couldn’t have happened to a more appropriate group of folks.

I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. 😀

  • “…wrestling with how to choreograph a proper send-off for Mr. Bush…”

    Tar and feathers?

  • “They’re just not quite sure what to do with the President of the United States.”

    Maybe deliberatly give him the wrong address?

    “Yeah, we’ll be at 900 South 5th Street. You can’t miss it. What? A phone number in case you get lost? It’s area code 212-867-5309. We’ll see you there.”

  • “Even though the president is the president, this is going to be John McCain’s convention, and you want it to be about John McCain and what his presidency would be.”

    Damn it, when they’re right, they’re right. George W. Bush conducts foreign policy via an ideologically driven black and white agenda totally lacking in detail and completely ignorant of history. John McCain is unable to remember details, ignores history and sees foreign policy through the prism of a war lost nearly forty years ago. Bush believes in tax cuts for the rich while McCain gets in his face by proposing tax cuts only for the wealthy. Maverick McCain further distances himself by assuring us that the market will provide health care for everyone while yesterday’s-news Bush continues to insist that the marketplace will provide health care for everyone.
    Why, they’re as different as coal and anthracite.

  • There is another reason for McCain to be shaking in his fake cowboy boots over a Bush appearance.The two men, deeply, viscerally, hate each other on a purely personal level. There have been various zings during the campaign, more from McCain (remember the backhander he gave Jeb by praising Charlie Crist)> And there has been at least a little speculation that the Washington TIMES surprisingly anti-McCain positions has been aided by Papa Bush’s friendship with the Rev. Moon.

    But at the convention, George W. Bush will have ‘nothing to lose.’ He’s a lame duck, already hated, and if the polls continue to move towards Obama — as i expect they will — McCain will be so obvious a loser that Bush’s speech can’t be ‘blamed’ for his defeat.

    I don’t expect a full-scale attack on McCain. I do expect a ‘textbook example’ of “damning with faint praise,” a number of ‘jokes’ that hit a little too close to home, and an attempt to ‘lock McCain into” several Bush positions, with Bush maybe even saying “John McCain has said to me that he supports…’ (which leaves McCain with the problem of calling the President a liar, or trying to defend positions he doesn’t agree with — even if he understands them, not certain for even his own positions.)

  • This is the downside of having the convention so late and so much closer to the election. If the convention had been June or July, they would have had relatively plenty of time to buld up a separate narrative that doesn’t include Bush – but here it will be already September and they will have a media image of the GOP diehards going apeshit over Bush on national TV in prime time – gonna be hard to erase that image before November.

  • A lot could happen between now and then. Obama is walking into the lion’s den by visiting Iraq as the same people who are there to protect him are also the same people who want to see him defeated. His “dog and pony show” tour will be aimed to prevent him seeing anything that would cause him to want to change policy…so why go on this “guided and protected” propaganda tour??

    A terrorist attack resulting in his death and whatever republican that accompanies him around so it won’t look like he was singled out would accomplish 2 things…eliminate McCain’s opponent and justify McCain’s more wars theory especially if the attack was seen to come from Iran. Trouble is…would anyone really believe it?…or would it matter since the election would have come and gone before the “investigation” was ever complete. I ask him not to go and instead send people he trusts. Why take a chance on being protected by Cheney’s people?

    After 9/11, I put nothing past these guys.

  • The Republicans are planning to throw quite a party in Minnesota in a couple of months. They’re just not quite sure what to do with the President of the United States. — CB

    Actually, the Dem convention will have a bit of the same problem: what to do with the Clintons, both of them (the ex-President and the Almost-Nominee).

  • The Bush Legacy: To be unloved and unwanted by his own kind shunned by shit….

  • libra, good point. What does it say about both parties if neither can run on the achievements of their last elected president?

  • Sounds like subject analysis for some Salvador Dali painting. Republicans go Freudian, it’s the next logical step.

  • I have a great idea: Let Bushit walk onto the stage and then have him arrested for war crimes. McAce would win the election hands down. Now, Darth Cheney, that’ll be a bit more delicate as he’ll be in an undisclosed location heavily guarded by Blackwater…

  • Capt Kirk, nothing’s wrong with that. If Clinton could have subdued his ego long enough to relax his death grip on power and resign for the good of his party and his country after Monicagate the Democrats would likely be running on the legacy of President Al Gore.

  • Yes, Dennis-SGMM, and who would be running? Joe Lieberman?

    I think it would be helpful if the media during the convention would along with Republican names and which state they are from also list indictments, investigations and convictions under their image.

  • Gore’s mistake was running AWAY from Clinton. Distancing himself from the successes of the 90s to avoid a scandal that well over half the country did not care about.

    Smart guy, but ran one of the dumbest campaigns in modern history.

  • Thorin-1 you are right about Gore’s bad campaign. His choice for Veep looks particularly bad in today’s light as well.

  • McCain’s main problem is that he’s running around screaming ‘I’m not Bush!’ to which the only responsible response is ‘Well, then who are you?’.

    His answer seems to be to lean in a sultry fashion against the doorframe, incline his head coquettishly and say ‘I can be whoever you want me to be…’ He might add ‘big boy’ at this point, I’m not sure.

  • An unexpected byproduct of the Bush Bubble. He could do the right thing for McCain and volunteer to keep out of it but he won’t. His ego won’t let him. He’s lived in the bubble for so long that he actually believes he is still a man of enormous influence. He thinks he’s doing McCain a favor.

  • I would like to see the Decider play Dietrich anytime. And he should do it at the convention. Maybe he could be escorted by Guckert/Gannon in uniform.

  • Hiding the face of corporate control is of no real consequence, when corporate control is the only face the Republican Party wears anymore. What bother with so obvious a facade? Bush is money maker and those AEI guys already know it.

    Does it matter if Bush and Cheney sit out – the party itself is now of mask of corruption and crime. I’m suprise any of them would show up this AEI Party – it’s so exclusive than only Al Capone and Jack Abramoff types would enjoy anyway.

    So hell, why not invite Bush? There really isn’t anybody at the Party that is going to care.

  • Maybe Bush can show up in a flight suit, do a hilarious little skit about still looking for WMD under the couch cushions, then give McCain a big kiss (with tongue).

    On a more serious note, what’s interesting to me is that the cracks in Republican unity are so obvious and public these days. They’ve lost their message discipline when anyone is allowed to publicly contemplate that W is not still the mini-messiah.

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