That Vanity Fair comment is so apt and it should make us feel real proud. Team Obama and the Democrats stand ready and willing to clear the decks it looks like.
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Davis Says Republicans Too Near `Radioactive' Bush
By Laura Litvan
May 16 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush is ``absolutely radioactive'' and Republicans will suffer widespread election losses in November unless they distance themselves from him, said Representative Tom Davis, a former leader of the party's House campaign committee.
``They've got to get some separation from the president,'' Davis, of Virginia, said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's ``Political Capital with Al Hunt,'' scheduled to be aired today. Bush is the face of the party and congressional Republicans are ``seen as just in lockstep with him on everything,'' Davis said.
Republicans would lose 20 to 25 House seats if the election were held today, Davis said. If Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is seen by voters as ``Bush III'' he will lose by 20 percentage points, said Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee from 1998 to 2002.
``Republicans, I think, have time to turn it around to some extent,'' said Davis, 59, who isn't seeking re-election this year. ``But, if they don't, we're cruising for a bruising.''
Davis warned his colleagues about further losses after Democrats won House special elections to replace Republicans in Louisiana, Mississippi and in the Illinois seat formerly held by former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.
A Mistake
Davis said Republicans made a mistake in backing Bush's opposition to expanding a children's health insurance program, providing federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research and changing Iraq War policy. They are now making a similar error by opposing a plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, he said.
``In every case, they've walked down an alley where they're 30 percent of the electorate,'' Davis said. ``And that makes you a permanent minority.''
Congressional Republicans must offer their own solutions on gas prices and other issues because there is ``nothing coming out of the White House'' on policy.
The House Republican leadership team, under Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, has been offering the ``same old, same old'' since the 2006 elections, he said. Animosity between Boehner and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Cole must be overcome to aid Republican candidates and secure their own party positions.
`Pull Together'
``Republicans have got to pull together and work as a team,'' he said.
If the leadership fails to help the party change course, ``they'll be thrown out by the caucus in December,'' he said.
Representative Chris Van Hollen, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said voters will likely see Republican attempts this year to separate themselves from Bush as ``pure political opportunism.''
``Eleventh-hour conversions can be very unsightly when people try and flip-flop at the last minute,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Davis also questioned Bush's comments this week that he won't negotiate with leaders of countries that sponsor terrorism -- an apparent slap at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's foreign-policy statements. That may have hurt Republicans because Bush was the messenger, Davis said.
`Turn Him Off'
``The difficulty for us right now is that President Bush is, although he's the president and the leader of the party, when you turn on the TV and see him, two-thirds of the people turn him off,'' Davis said. ``They're not going to believe him even when he's right so he's got to get surrogates.''
Davis added that Bush may have gone too far when he said that ``some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,'' in a speech in Israel. Bush said that one senator suggested before World War II that he might have been able to dissuade Adolf Hitler's aggression.
``When you throw in Hitler and some things, you know, it raises the stakes,'' Davis said. ``I don't know how this will play off.''
The appeasement comments may be an effective slap at Democrats, he said. ``But just listening to the talk shows and the call-ins and everything else at this point, there's a lot of hostility out there,'' Davis said.
Even with the difficulties facing Republicans, McCain might prevail because he has the support of independent voters who abandoned the other Republican presidential candidates, Davis said.
``He is positioned to do that because the things that are carrying him forward right now are the things that a lot of Republicans have not liked him for over the years,'' Davis said. ``But that independence puts him in good stead in this environment.''
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