"Analyze Diss" (Republicans Learn the Fine Art of Bush-Bashing)

[Hissyspit]

(This is from The New Republic, but there's some interesting/amusing stuff in it...)

http://www.tnr.com/user/nregi.mhtml?i=20060814&s=lizza081406

Analyze Diss
by Ryan Lizza
In the salad days of post-September 11 GOP dominance, Republican congressmen were happy to stand with the president. Now, they're hiding from him.

It's not too much to say that Representative Mark Kennedy owes his political career to George W. Bush. When the Minneapolis corporate executive left the boardroom to embark on a quixotic bid for Congress in 2000, Bush's coattails carried him to a 155-vote victory. Once ensconced in Washington, Kennedy thrived as a Bush conservative in the salad days of post-September 11 GOP dominance. His fealty to the president was repaid in 2002 with the ultimate campaign gift: footage of Kennedy and Bush walking solemnly down the White House colonnade as the young congressman imparted some inaudible wisdom to the commander-in-chief. A Kennedy campaign ad that fall featured the scene with the voiceover, "I'm Congressman Mark Kennedy. I've stood with President Bush on the war against terrorism." It worked. Initially considered vulnerable, Kennedy won the race with a knockout 57 to 35 percent. In 2004, Bush's coattails helped lift Kennedy to victory once more. Bush won the district with 57 percent of the vote, his best showing in the state, while Kennedy lagged behind with 54 percent.

But those coattails have gotten an awful lot shorter in the last two years. Today, Kennedy is running like a candidate trying to shake off a disreputable past--in this case, one as a Bush Republican. And he's not alone. The districts and states that represent the best pick-up opportunities for Democrats, almost by definition, are the ones where Bush fatigue is strongest. So, after three elections of embracing Bush, GOP candidates across the country are facing a new challenge: perfecting the art of dissing Bush.

- snip -

Banished are any mentions of the president, the war on terrorism, or the GOP. Instead, the ad features a shot of Kennedy dressed ridiculously in a birthday hat and party blower to emphasize his daughter's on-camera testimony that he's "just not much of a party guy" and "doesn't do whatever the party says to." (She's right, though only barely: Kennedy opposed Bush's position only 8 percent of the time since coming to Washington.) When a reporter recently asked Kennedy why the scrupulously nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly described him as a "loyal Bush supporter," Kennedy seemed to regard the phrase as a political smear: "The attack on me is that I'm a lap dog of the president.... To have an organization as reputable as CQ fall into that trap, I just don't know."

Missouri Senator Jim Talent is also unveiling a newfound independent streak. Running in a special election in 2002, Talent had done Kennedy one better, scoring not only footage from the president but audio, too. "The best person running for the United States Senate is Jim Talent," Bush announced in a campaign ad. "The man doesn't need a focus group or a poll to tell him what to say." Perhaps. Though it seems that the GOP's cratering polls may have something to do with the new tack Talent is trying out for his reelection race. Bush is out, as is partisanship in all its forms. "Most people don't care if you're red or blue, Republican or Democrat," declares a new Talent ad, wishfully. In a "director's commentary" about the spot (I kid you not) that the senator provides on his website, he brags of passing legislation with Democrats including Chris Dodd, Charles Schumer, and Dianne Feinstein. No mention of the guy who signed it all into law.

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[rfranklin]

1. Dem comercial: Kennedy's face on a clown...

interspersed with him walking with Bush...."The party's over, time to get rid of this clown."

[Hissyspit]

2. Excellent.