Why Democrats Have Popular Presidents and Republicans Don’t

[applegrove]

Why Democrats Have Popular Presidents and Republicans Don’t

By Jonathan Chait at the Daily Intelligencer, at NY Magazines

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/why-democrats-have-popular-presidents.html#

"SNIP..............


As the matchup between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton takes shape, it has begun to dawn on some conservatives that the Republican Party faces a distinct handicap: The Democrats will have two popular ex-presidents to campaign for them, and the GOP will have none. Bill Clinton is the party's most effective surrogate for wife Hillary, writes Byron York in the conservative Washington Examiner: “Republicans haven't had the same luck. The only two-term GOP president in the last generation, George W. Bush, has stayed mostly out of politics in the seven years since he left the White House.” Meanwhile, writing for The Wall Street Journal opinion page, Richard Benedetto grapples with President Obama’s value as a surrogate. “When Mr. Obama ran for office in 2008, a central part of his campaign strategy was to heap blame on George W. Bush,” writes Benedetto. “How has Mr. Obama dodged similar treatment?”

How indeed? The answer, I’d suggest, is something along the lines of by governing competently rather than presiding over a flaming wreck of a presidency. But this answer presumes a level of introspection into the success of the last two Democratic presidents, and the conspicuous failure of the one wedged between them, that is absent from both columns, and from conservative thought in general.

York notes “the GOP's ex-president situation is a mess,” a situation he casually describes as “luck.” The closest his column comes to exploring the source of this misfortune is to note the bad blood between Donald Trump and the Bush family, especially Trump’s statement that Bush peddled false intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (“Jeb Bush stood haplessly by, unable to defend either himself or his brother.”) Of course, Jeb could not defend his brother because, while Trump’s indictment was exaggerated (the Bush administration was victimized by bad intelligence), it was not entirely false (the administration also manipulated the intelligence at its disposal).

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Even if we discount the role of economics completely, though, the difference in governing quality is stark. Democrats have a governing program and a cadre of policy advisers that is responsive to empirical reality and able to effectively respond to real-world problems. Republicans have none of these things, and the rise of Trump has shown that the problem has grown worse, not better. Republicans don’t have an “ex-president problem.” They have a failed party.

...............SNIP"

[Rex]

1. The BFEE victimized by bad intelligence? BAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[applegrove]

2. I know. I caught that too. I think the Eugene is soft peddaling the GOP to try and get them to read

this.

[truebluegreen]

3. That's what jumped out at me as well.

Poor dears.