From Straight Shooter McCain, accepting the endorsement of his campaign by President Bush yesterday:
“I hope that he’ll campaign for me as much as is in keeping with his busy schedule,” McCain said.
Liar.
The last thing McCain wants is Bush doing a lot of campaigning for him. Fund raising? Yes. Campaigning? No. As one currently unaffiliated Democratic consultant noted:
“To the extent that Sen. McCain wraps himself in the ‘popularity’ of President Bush or wraps himself in his foreign policy or wraps himself in his agenda, he does so at his own peril,” said Michael Feldman, who played a key role in Vice President Al Gore’s Democratic presidential race in 2000 but is not affiliated with either Democratic hopeful this year.
Even our dimwit in chief recognized this fact:
“If my showing up and endorsing him helps him, or if I’m against him and it helps him — either way, I want him to win,” Bush joked.
So what is the proper response to Bush’s endorsement from Democrats. Well, I can tell you one thing: it isn’t to talk up McCain’s vast experience (experience at what, I might add — enjoying the attentions and favors of lobbyists?). No, the proper response to the dead stinking fish wrap of an endorsement that Bush just plastered to his “good friend” Straight Shooter is this statement from Howard Dean:
“John McCain just doesn’t get it,” said Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman. “All he offers is four more years of the failed Bush economy, an endless war in Iraq and shameless hypocrisy on ethics reform. The fact is, the American people want change, not another out-of-touch Bush Republican, and Democrats welcome the opportunity to draw this contrast for voters.”
Expect to hear that phrase “Bush Republican” a lot in the next eight months, and not just directed at the Straight Shooter. In fact, one could do a generic campaign ad to run against Republicans in either the House or the Senate this year which simply repeated those words over and over again, changing only the name and the face with which to tar it. Until that ad gets made, however, enjoy this production from Brave New Films about McCain’s Friends which would make a nice campaign ad in its own right: