To this particular Australian, it seems to me that George W. Bush is often severely underrated regarding his innate political street fighting skills. There is no other prominent Republican politician he reminds me of in so much as Richard Nixon to be honest. This might be a bad thing in the fullness of time - in so far as sheer power lust might ultimately be shown to be the man’s driving force - but it has to be said that the man can pull some heavy punches when he needs to.
Indeed, if there was ONE simple change that I, as an outsider, would make to American politics, it would be to make it a rule that no one can run for President unless they’ve first served as a Federal Senator or Congressman for at least 7 years. I know that might sound a bit silly, but at least it would force future Presidential candidates to have “served their time” at the Federal level first - whereupon the American voting population would have a clearer perception of a potential candidate at a national level. Also, I’d make it a rule that only Senators and Congressman can serve as major “Secretaries” in the Executive Office - again, the goal being that some sort of nation wide public accountability is enforced.
That being said, please forgive me my American Doper friends if I crossed the line there. Just an impartial Australian friend making an observation or two. I recognise that my suggested change would inherently preclude a real “outside star” from ever running for President, but the cynics amongst us would argue that the US Presidency has been a TV driven marketing campaign for quite some time now regardless.
Goo, you’re more likely thinking of Karl Rove as the chief streetfighter. All Bush has to do is read his scripts and let others do the power-grabbing.
Regarding your suggestion, it’s worth keeping in mind that the US federal government isn’t unitary - the executive functions aren’t performed by members of Congress on detail duty from their majority party; the 2 branches plus the judicial one are separate and their leaders and personnel are chosen separately. There is very little transference between branches, at least at the upper levels.
Experience in the legislative branch isn’t seen here as especially transferrable to the executive one. When we consider candidates for an executive-branch job, we prefer to consider executive-branch experience, at either federal or state level, considering what the person accomplished at his previous job. We’re reluctant to hire someone who’s never run a large organization successfully for the job of Leader of the Free World. I think that’s essentially why every President since Kennedy (and most nominees, too) got there via a top executive job, either the Vice Presidency or a state governorship. As well, since we can vote for the legislative and executive branch leaderships separately, we traditionally “split the ticket” - picking candidates of different parties to keep a balance of power, in the hope that they’ll compromise somewhere closer to the actual center. When they don’t compromise, nothing much gets done, but that’s usually far from the worst that could happen.
Don’t worry about “the line” - you’ve stayed impartial but interested, and that’s what we’re all about here. The line, for me, is in taking a partisan view of another country’s politics, with another line at not giving much of a damn about one’s own. Those lines get crossed here, but not by you or by almost anyone else. Thanks for your thoughts.
By that token, I’ll suggest that countries with parliamentary structures in their governments might do better to adopt aspects of the multi-branch system we use. That would stop your endless cycles of lurching from one party’s unchecked ideologically-driven policies to another, with the others relegated to powerless complaining until the party in control makes itself too unpopular to continue. But perhaps this outsider is misreading that.
I can easily say Cheney would never be the GOP candidate… he doesnt have charisma or the health for it. Thou I think Bush doesnt have much charisma either… but thats a different story.
Bush will only step down if his ratings go rotten way way before the election. The GOP wont fight a steep uphill battle. Bush will rely on bad democratic contenders and a money filled campaign to change the opinions of electors if his ratings stay at the current 52% or drop only a little more.
The issue still remains of a good democrat coming forth to do battle with them... :(