Blame-Bush Tack Is Wearing Thin
FEBRUARY 12, 2010, 9:49 P.M. ET.
By GREG HITT And NAFTALI BENDAVID
WASHINGTON—Democrats are working hard these days to tell voters that the nation's economic problems were created by President George W. Bush. But that line of attack—which has buoyed the party significantly over the past four years—may be losing its edge.
In a string of recent elections, Democrats have tried to paint Republicans as Bush acolytes ready to lead a revival of his policies. One widely aired television ad in the recent Massachusetts Senate race showed a picture of Republican Scott Brown, and then shots of former President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Brown won anyway.
The results suggest voters are beginning to worry less about what Mr. Bush did, and more about what President Barack Obama will do to dig the economy out.
Indeed, most polls suggest there is little debate about which president should be blamed. In the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey, 65% of voters agreed Mr. Obama had inherited the nation's economic problems. But by a 49% to 43% margin, voters also said they disapprove of Mr. Obama's handling of the economy, underscoring how they have shifted responsibility for the issue to the Democratic president.
The changing dynamics could deny Democrats a powerful message in this year's midterm elections and lighten a yoke that has weighed on Republicans since they lost control of Congress in 2006.
Some Democrats are beginning to acknowledge that invoking the Bush name might not be effective anymore. It has "lost any relevancy and therefore any potency," said Paul Begala, a longtime adviser to former President Bill Clinton.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), who is running Democrats' re-election efforts in the Senate, said the party instead wants to focus on Mr. Bush's record, if not his name. "I don't think this is about using George Bush as a bogeyman, but about Republicans owning up to their embrace of the economic policies that got us in this mess in the first place," he said.
Republicans, for their part, are saying it is time to move on. "The American people aren't waking up in the morning and blaming George Bush," said Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip.
Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to newly elected Sen. Scott Brown, noted that Democrats tried to paint the Massachusetts Republican as a Bush wannabee, to little effect. "The Democrats need a new playbook," he said.
Leveraging a president's unpopularity to political advantage is a well-established strategy. For decades after the Great Depression, Democrats deployed the image of Herbert Hoover while portraying themselves as guardians of working people. Ronald Reagan often invoked the economic record of Jimmy Carter on his way to a landslide re-election in 1984.
More recently, Democrats won over voters by criticizing Republican candidates for signing on to Mr. Bush's policies. The message helped fuel Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008, and in a couple of special elections last year for House seats.
The same tactics were deployed in January against Mr. Brown. Stumping in Boston before the vote, President Obama argued "what's at stake here" is "whether we're going forward, or going backward."
Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies have also begun highlighting Republican proposals that revisit pieces of the Bush agenda, such as a plan by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) to allow younger Americans to invest some of their Social Security payroll taxes in the private market.
Democratic strategists are still urging candidates around the country to define the election year as a debate over Bush-era policies. A memo recently distributed by Mr. Menendez's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee instructed: "It is incumbent upon your campaign to build the case that electing your opponent will mean a return to an economic approach that nearly drove us off a cliff."
In several battleground states, including New Hampshire and North Carolina, that has translated into Democrats seizing on Mr. Obama's proposal for a bank-bailout fee to draw distinctions with Republicans who oppose it.
Republicans, by and large, are shrugging off the attacks. In Massachusetts, Mr. Brown opposed the bank fee, called for across-the-board tax cuts and still won. He also studiously rejected any effort to link him to the Republican establishment and especially to Mr. Bush.
"As far as voters were concerned, it was like trying to tie him to Warren G. Harding," Mr. Fehrnstrom said.
Write to Greg Hitt at greg.hitt@wsj.com and Naftali Bendavid at naftali.bendavid@wsj.com
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