I am somewhat skeptical of the Democratic strategy of using George W. Bush as a punching bag this fall but when you look at who the undecided voters on the generic ballot for the national poll we'll release later this week it starts to become more clear why it could be an effective strategy:
-They disapprove of Obama by a 38/48 margin and their approval numbers for Congressional Democrats are 16/64. So they're not very happy with how things are going.
-At the same time 51% of them think the current state of the economy is still George W. Bush's responsibility to only 27% who think it's Obama's, and 55% of them would rather have Obama as President to only 28% who are feeling Bush nostalgia.
These folks aren't happy with how things are going. But they were even unhappier with how things were going a couple years ago. Playing the Bush card may just convince them it's better to stay the current course, even if they don't love it, than to go back to the old one.
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Questions or Comments?
10 comments:
Things were pretty bad two years ago. Obama's job was to make things better. It's not a positive that 28% of the people think it was better then.
Democrats ran against Bush in 2006 and 2008. Bush will never be on the ballot again. Rather than moving forward they want to go back to an old strategy that worked. The problem when you run against Bush is you didn't run against John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell et al.
So they can blame Bush all they want, but ask them is they blame Obama vs. Cantor or Boehner. You won't get a lot of people blaming Boehner. They know he's not in charge of the economy. They would've heard of him.
The Democrats will sell, "Republicans want to give tax cuts to the rich, ship jobs overseas, and have Wall Street go out of control again just like under Bush."
Of course, the Republicans gave the largest middle class tax cut in history and the percentages of Federal income tax the rich paid went up under Bush. Despite all those jobs shipped overseas, unemployment was half what it is today. And the Dems don't want people to point out their role in the financial meltdown. Fortunately for them the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission won't come out with their report until December.
Things are really bad and the Republicans might remind people that if we go back to the Republican policies of the 1990's, when there was a Democrat in the White House and Republicans controlled congress, things were really really good.
DBL, what the hell are you smoking? It was the Republicans who controlled Congress in 1999, when the bill deregulating the financial services industry passed. It was Phil Gramm (eww...), a Republican, who supported this.
Did you know that Bush passed tax cuts across the board and not just for the middle class? The top bracket went from 39.6% to 35% under Bush.
Here we are in August of 2010 and the Democrats continue to try to blame Bush for everything that the Obama Administration has utterly failed at accomplishing. When, may I ask, is Obama, his Administration and the Democratic party going to start taking responsibility for their own actions. The blame Bush for everything game has gotten so absurdly overplayed at this point that so many people of BOTH parties have become sick and tired of it - and increasingly so as it continues. Rasmussen did a poll on August 2nd and found that, by a 48% to 47% margin, voters now blame Obama more than Bush for the economy being what it is. That, by the way, is a significant change from three months ago when Bush got the more negative side of the equation by a Margin of 62% to 27%. Clearly the saturation point has been reached and is now having rather negative results for the Democrats - and is only going to get worse. Enough is ENOUGH already! Let's move on!
Congratulations to your excellent Colorado primary polling results!
I think blaming Bush may be in line with what voters are doing, but it's definitely not what voters expect or want to hear from existing politicians.
If I'm a hypothetical voter, and I want myself and my family to have a lot of job opportunities in the next two years, I may be fully willing to blame Bush for the state of the economy. But a sitting politician explaining to me how angry I should be at Bush doesn't help my situation, and indeed makes me resent the politician even more.
Republicans have their share of responsibility for the meltdown. Gramm-Leach was theirs, although Bill Clinton signed it and still swears by it. Interesting how Dems claim everything good during Clinton Presidency and Republicans are responsible for the bad.
The bill, as you point out, was in 1999 and was after the 1990s prosperity.
Yes, Bush gave tax cuts to the rich. As a result, income tax revenue went up dramatically and the share of income tax the rich pay went way up.
If the Dems are successful in raising taxes on the rich, they'll suppress their income. If the middle class does better, the share the middle class pays in income tax goes way up. Then the Democrats can really complain that the rich doesn't pay "their fair share."
Good Lord, what kind of an election strategy is saying, "Well, we aren't as bad as ______?" It's like saying, "Sure, we suck, but we don't suck as bad as they do!"
That's pretty bad IMO. Bush has been out of office for 2 years and has been without power for 4 years. The Obama experiment is not working out and voters have snapped out of the hysteria that encapsulated the country in 2008.
57% of Likely Voters Describe Democratic Congressional Agenda As Extreme
Democrats are desperate to turn attention away from their extremism by any means necessary.
How'd blaming Bush work out for Martha Coakley?
"When, may I ask, is Obama, his Administration and the Democratic party going to start taking responsibility for their own actions."
To quote House Speaker Pelosi: "we'll stop blaming Bush when his problems go away."
It can only be described as Kafkaesque irony that people like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh don't want Obama referring to the policies of a president{?} who left office less than two years ago, while blaming all of HIS mistakes on Carter and/or Clinton . . .
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