Aren’t there more presidential things he can be doing? I would expect him to go on record as supporting reps that he agrees with, but it appears he’s taking time off from being president to get his buddies re-elected. Does anyone else think this is an inappropriate use of his Presidential time?
Well, a cynic might say it’s better for him to spend his time campaigning than running (or screwing up) the country.
[shrug] It’s usual. One expects the POTUS to appear at (some) campaign rallies of his own party’s candidates.
Did Clinton and Bush I and Reagan etc. spend as much time campaigning as Bush II does. I don’t recall the others devoting so much time and effort to it. But maybe I just wasn’t paying attention before. I feel like the President should be working for the benefit of all the people of the country, not his political party.
Actually, I was reading an article the other day that said that most of those running don’t WANT Bush around…in fact, several of them have ignored him when he has wandered into their state. 
As for whether its right or not…well, probably not. But its been going on for quite a long time, so I don’t see any help for it.
-XT
All recent Presidents have done it. I recall Reagan making a big push in 1986 to try and preserve the GOP Senate majority.
It’s a political position. He is the titular head of his party. I have no problem with it.
One could make a case that by attempting to drum up support for his party’s candidates, he is working for the the country. In order to do what he feels is in the country’s benefit, he will need his party to remain in control of Congress.
Reagan and Bush didn’t have the opportunity to effect change by campaigning for their party’s candidates. Clinton had no reason to expect that the Congress would go Republican for the first time in 40 years. Bush, on the other hand, is in the position of watching his party (potentially) lose control right before his eyes, and he is campaigning in an attempt to forestall that from happening. As the leader of his party he has a certain obligation to do something and not just watch from the sidelines. Of course, that’s really a question of how you feel about partisan politics. The President is not apolitical, and it is unreasonable to asume that he ever will be.
What is more presidential than seeking to get enough supporters elected to ensure that his programs are passed into law?
I’d want to see this quanitified before I accepted the idea that GWB is doing it more than his predecessors. Presidents have spent a substantial portion of their waking hours politicking for a great many years. One way to get one’s own platform enacted is to make periodic appearances in public locations to urge the electorate to press Congress to pass one’s favored legislation. One public forum for making such appeals is at campaign appearances for preferred candidates where one has a dual opportunity: one to push the platform and the other to ensure that a supporter of that platform gets elected to provide supporting votes in Congress.
It very certainly has not started with GWB; There were many stories of congresscritters asking Carter in 1980, Reagan in 1986 and 1988, Bush in 1992 and Clinton in 2000 to stay away from their campaigns to avoid “contamination” as well as stories of congresscritters happily accepting support from Reagan in 1982 and 1984 and Clinton prior to the impeachment process. Both sets of stories imply that Presidential campaigning for congresscritters is more typical than not. (For that matter, I have seen several stories of incumbents asking that GWB not endorse them this election, indicating that he is probably not doing it as often as he might have.)
Given the approval ratings he’s been racking up, I’d love to see him doing a lot more.
Having Bush come in and campaign for you has GOT to be the kiss of death for any Republican. I’d think the Dems would be overjoyed to have him make appearences in any state that is in contention.
-XT
A Tagalog-speaker might think that the title of this thread is about a cat.
That’s a little strong. I agree he’d be the KOD for most republicans, but look at the numbers for this Nebraska district:
Bush is barely under 50% for Nebraska as a whole, so he must still have a little pull in the state’s republican bastion.
Can you explain this remark? I don’t understand it.
Actually, I’d worry a lot more about less visible things the Admin has been doing to bolster the Pubs’ electoral changes, at taxpayer expense. You can find many of these described in One Party Country: The Republican Plan for Dominance in the 21st Century, by Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallstein. (This book, BTW, is not the screaming screed the title might suggest; in fact, when discussing the deeds of Rove et al., its tone is not damnatory but congratulatory, and the thesis is that the Pubs are seeking the kind of “dominance” the Dems had under FDR and Truman, not the kind the Communist Party had in the Soviet Union.)
Despite the assorted GOP shenanigans and how they may affect Tuesday’s midterms, I’d say a book with that title belongs in the same pile as that 1999 hit, Dow 36,000.
Ensuring his supporters get elected to office is definitely part of a President’s job. Having supporters in Congress is a key necessity for a President in managing events.
Reagan and G.H.W. Bush could have campaigned until they were blue in the face and it still wouldn’t have effected any change in the composition of the Congress. The Democrats were well entrenched during their terms in office. That’s why it was so stunning to see the Republicans take over in 1994 with their “Contract With America”.
Thanks for the explanation. But actually, that’s not entirely true: the Senate was Republican-controlled for four years of Reagan’s administration, in '81-'82 and '85-'86.
That the Prez will go on the campaign trail for his preferred candidates is not a bad thing. What annoys me is when the President says that there is not enough time for him to be deposed, or to provide needed information to Congress, due to his busy schedule, but there is somehow time for him to go to fundraisers and campaign for others. That doesn’t add up.