As the McCain-Palin campaign veers Wild Westward, the GOP Eastern elite is dropping off the wagon train.
CNN reports a "conservative backlash" to McCain's mortgage proposal with the National Review deriding the plan as "creating a level of moral hazard that is unacceptable."
George Will says "the McCain-Palin campaign's attempt to get Americans to focus on Obama's Chicago associations seems surreal--or, as a British politician once said about criticism he was receiving, 'like being savaged by a dead sheep.'"
Peggy Noonan issues "a warning" to Republicans: "When your crowds go from 'I love you' to 'I hate the other guy,' you are in trouble, you are on a losing strain. Winning campaigns are built on love."
David Brooks observes that "no American politician plays the class-warfare card as constantly as Palin. Nobody so relentlessly divides the world between the 'normal Joe Sixpack American' and the coastal elite. She is another step in the Republican change of personality."
David Gergen goes from his CNN gig to the Colbert Report to repeat his warnings about Palin's stirring of racial hatred.
As the best Republican brains desert the McCain cause, he is in danger of being isolated among the yahoos and crackpots.
Showing posts with label David Gergen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Gergen. Show all posts
Friday, October 10, 2008
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
The Panic of the Least Political President
In my lifetime of observing 12 American Presidents, none has been as politically incompetent--or to be more accurate, uninvolved in the process--as George W. Bush. He is highly partisan, but not political.
So it comes as no surprise that insiders are admitting the White House “is in panic mode” over defections of Senate Republicans from their four years of unwavering support for the President’s Iraq policy.
On CNN last night David Gergen, who worked in several Administrations, expressed bewilderment at Bush’s failure to engage directly with legislative leaders of his party, instead sending his National Security Adviser on a “scouting trip” rather than attempting personally to keep his troops from breaking ranks.
From the extreme of Lyndon Johnson, who twisted arms, to Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in “reasoning” with legislators, every President has worked hard as an advocate, cheer-leader and horse trader to get Congress to do what he wanted.
Bush seems to disdain all that. Perhaps his life experience explains why. Unlike others who had to strive and struggle to get there, Bush came to the White House after a lifetime of getting what he wanted through family connections.
In 2000, he was practically anointed as the Republican nominee by name recognition and massive early fund-raising that came with it. When John McCain became a potential road block after winning in New Hampshire, Rove and his gang of Bush family retainers blasted him out of the way.
Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, the scion of the Bush line is facing a challenge that hired hands can’t handle for him. Will he have the instincts and the guts to meet it? Or will he become the lamest Lame Duck of all time?
So it comes as no surprise that insiders are admitting the White House “is in panic mode” over defections of Senate Republicans from their four years of unwavering support for the President’s Iraq policy.
On CNN last night David Gergen, who worked in several Administrations, expressed bewilderment at Bush’s failure to engage directly with legislative leaders of his party, instead sending his National Security Adviser on a “scouting trip” rather than attempting personally to keep his troops from breaking ranks.
From the extreme of Lyndon Johnson, who twisted arms, to Dwight Eisenhower, who believed in “reasoning” with legislators, every President has worked hard as an advocate, cheer-leader and horse trader to get Congress to do what he wanted.
Bush seems to disdain all that. Perhaps his life experience explains why. Unlike others who had to strive and struggle to get there, Bush came to the White House after a lifetime of getting what he wanted through family connections.
In 2000, he was practically anointed as the Republican nominee by name recognition and massive early fund-raising that came with it. When John McCain became a potential road block after winning in New Hampshire, Rove and his gang of Bush family retainers blasted him out of the way.
Now, perhaps for the first time in his life, the scion of the Bush line is facing a challenge that hired hands can’t handle for him. Will he have the instincts and the guts to meet it? Or will he become the lamest Lame Duck of all time?
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