2008 in Review - Bush But Better (July)

Frustration over the way McCain refused to step out of the shadow of the President led to this thesis "Bush But Better"  The problem dogged McCain all the way to the finish line.

John McCain has a serious problem in trying to run for President as the Republican successor to President Bush.  George W. Bush is wildly unpopular.  Bush’s approval ratings have been below freezing for over a year, and nothing he has done or said has moved the number. 

Barack Obama has repeatedly tried to tie McCain to the president, referring to McCain as Bush’s Third Term.  The charge has a certain shock appeal.  A clear majority of Americans are horrified at the thought of this Administration continuing one day longer than constitutionally-mandated.

And so McCain has tried to distance himself from George W. Bush.  He has not done it, though, with substantive distinctions between his policies and those of the President.  Rather he has been selectively critical of the executive (small E) failings of the Bush administration.  He has been to Louisiana and declared the President’s to Hurricane Katrina unacceptable.  He has announced that he would cease the use of Guantanamo Bay as a detention center. 

But on the substantive questions of the day, on the topics which by necessity will consume the energies of whoever is our next President, McCain stands shoulder-to-should with W.

Iraq.  McCain has been vocally supportive of Bush’s decisions - the surge, maintaining troop levels through stop-loss and shortened stateside rotations, and in insisting that the U.S. will not leave Iraq “until the job is done.”

Taxes.  The John McCain who opposed tax cuts in the first years of the decade has been replaced by one who promises to continue the Bush tax cuts and even extend them.  His opposition was based upon the argument that tax cuts without spending reductions was fiscally unsound.  Nothing has happened to make that argument untrue. 

Health Insurance.  To the extent that McCain has a plan, it is based on providing support to health insurance companies.

The housing crisis.  McCain urges restraint whenever it is suggested that government should take a hand to prevent wide-spread foreclosures or that government should better regulate the industry to prevent similar mortgage loan abuses.

Energy policy.  McCain favors drilling and opposes subsidies for energy alternatives.

In all these areas, McCain lines up right beside the President.  He is keen to distance himself from the President, but not too keen to actually disagree with the President. 

And so his rejoinder to the claim that he is running to be George Bush the Third is that actually he is running to be Bush But Better.  All of the same policies trumpeted by the President, without the hard edge of ineptitude which has marked almost every endeavor.  

Having learned from Bush’s mistakes in Iraq, McCain urges a significant troop increase in Afghanistan before it descends into another sectarian quagmire.  

Horrified by the callousness and bureaucratic bungling of FEMA, McCain loudly proclaims that no such disaster will occur on his watch.  He doesn’t explain what policy changes he would make - he isn’t arguing for a massive investment in infrastructure improvements - but he makes plain that the Bush Administration made a hash of Katrina and he won’t do that.

Bush But Better is all nuance and no substance.  McCain is betting that he can convince the voters that George W. Bush wasn’t wrong, merely a lousy executive.  Since McCain can’t tell us what policies he would abandon, his argument comes down to a distinction between the failed policies and failed performance.  The problem, though, is that the voters are trouble separating the two.

McCain would be far better served to highlight his policy differences with the President.  The people are in the mood for change.  There is positively no upside to trying to argue that the President is doing anything right.  McCain needs to highlight those areas, even if few in number, where Bush was not inept but mis-guided. 

He needs to forcefully argue for new directions.  Otherwise he will continue to be tarred by the President’s dismal approval ratings.  He needs to specifically address the President’s perceived weaknesses - his dogged pursuit of the most expansive possible definition of presidential power, his spend-thrift fiscal policy, his inability acknowledge opposing viewpoints, even his refusal to admit a mistake.

McCain needs to address each of these traits as well as the mis-guided policies which these traits have perpetuated.  This shouldn’t be hard to do.  John McCain, the maverick from Arizona, would have had no trouble highlighted the failings of the President’s policies and leadership style.  And in doing so, McCain isn’t required to repudiate any of his own policies - just reject the culture of partisanship, chide the President for being unnecessarily difficult to work with, and point out a few identifiable ways that a McCain Administration will depart from the current path.

Until he takes that step, though, he will continue to be dragged down by Bush’s unpopularity.

The longer the campaign goes on, the harder it will be for McCain to rebut the allegation that he is merely continuing the legacy of W.  Faced with an opponent who skillfully invokes the better angels of our nature, McCain needs to offer the people more inspirational than Bush But Better.