RE; “A 3rd Term For Bush”
June 4th, 2008 | by Bluestate |BLUE STATE REPLIES:::
I have to admit, I really hate the idea of another slogan or soundbite based presidential campaign..
“A 3rd Term for Bush” - “Tax and Spend” - “Support the Troops” etc..
I mean.. do any of them really mean anything. Sure Obama is going to use this phrase, When you’ve got a President who by most measurements is one of, if not the most unpopular President at this point in his term, in US history, he’d be crazy not to.
I think most of this is largely of McCain’s making though. In 2000 he was his own man. Not afraid to speak out against his own side when he felt they were wrong. To me, and many blue staters, he was by far the best option the Republicans could have given the country, and probably one of the few Republicans that many blue staters would have given some thought to voting for. But McCain 2008, is not McCain 2000.
To most blue staters, McCain has basically sold his soul to the devil to get this nomination. He traded in his integrity and his honesty for the support of the current White House, who more or less anointed him as the Republican successor to Bush.
Virtually everything McCain stood for in 2000, he has taken an almost polar opposite position over the past 4 years. Who is the real John McCain? That’s an unanswered question at this point.
I fully expect McCain to revert back or at least try and revert back to the McCain of 2000. But using a phrase from the 2004 election, can he really pull off the “Flip Flop’, I think it’s going to be very difficult.
There is no doubt he has stood firmly behind Bush on most issues the past 4 years. And I think that’s the angle the Dems are going to take. There’s no question McCain has far more experience than Bush had, and is by any measure, far more qualified to be Commander in Chief than Bush was when he took office. He has by far more experience than Obama, no one will argue that point.
But I don’t know that experience is a substitute for judgment. I will agree that Obama is an unknown commodity. But McCain has chosen his path over the past 4 years, and cast his lot with the sitting President, which is a very different path than he took in 2000. Either he had a political motive for doing so, or he changed his opinion on almost every position.
McCain is now trying to proclaim himself the change candidate. Does anyone really think he can pull this off?
Most of our Preidents have come from the ranks of Governors and former Governors, so really Obama has more federal and specifically national security experience than most any of the recent Presidential candidates of either party.
Obama has been privy to far more national security information than Bush, Clinton, or Reagan before they took office.
I guess it really depends on the factors you are looking at when the sound bite “Bush’s 3rd term is used”
I would say the odds are good that it will stick.
