Last night, one of the most important, influential voices in American politics finally released an endorsement for president. No, I'm not talking about the New York Times' endorsement of Sen. Obama released late last night. Nor am I talking about Pres. Bush's former Press Secretary Scott McClellan endorsing Obama on D.L. Hughley's show on CNN. But that does raise an interesting question: D.L. HUGHLEY HAS A SHOW ON CNN??? How does that sentence not end with "on the WB?" But no, I'm talking about President George Walker Bush, who finally came out to fully embrace the candidacy of Sen. John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin.
In complimenting Gov. Palin's amazing folksy appeal, Pres. Bush explained that "for a while I tried to be folksy, but after a bit it just came off douchey."
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Serious point: do you remember any election where the sitting president has been so disregarded? He didn't even appear at the convention (behind the pretext of a hurricane - trust me, they didn't want him there).
Well, in my lifetime there have only been two elections where the sitting president was not running for reelection, 1988 and 2000. In each of those elections, the incumbant vice president was running as his party's standard-bearer, and in both cases (Bush pere in '88, and Al Gore in 2000) the candidates sought to distance themselves from teh scandals and failures of the sitting president's second term.
True, both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton played large roles at their conventions, but Bush wanted to distance himself from the Iran/Contra scandal and Reagan's "voodoo economics," just as Al Gore wanted absolutely nothing to do with Bill "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky" Clinton.
So, long answer, yes, I have seen this before. Short answer, no, I have never seen a sitting president pushed so far into the background before.
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