Republicans Upset Over Bush Plan to Use Reagan Images, Speeches in Campaign Ads

[dissention]

Republicans Upset Over Bush Plan to Use Reagan Images, Speeches in Campaign Ads

By TERESA HAMPTON
Capitol Hill Blue Staff Writer
Jun 10, 2004, 08:15


As the nation prepares to bury former President Ronald Reagan, Republican insiders fight among themselves over plans by the political team of President George W. Bush to use images of and speeches by Reagan in new television ads aimed at jump-starting a faltering campaign.

“They’re disgusting,” says one long-time Republican who participated in a focus group to preview the new television ads. “They dishonor the memory of Ronald Reagan and if President Bush allows these ads on the air I, for one, will not vote for him in November.”

The ads, ordered up by Bush political advisor Karl Rove immediately after Reagan’s death last Saturday, use images of Reagan and excerpts from his speeches in what one angry GOP conservative describes as a “callous attempt to tie George W. Bush to the legacy of Ronald Wilson Reagan.”

One proposed ad even goes so far as to show Reagan saying “George, go out and win one for the Gipper.” The clip comes from Reagan’s speech to the 1988 Republican National Convention where the former President’s request was to Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, in his successful 1988 run for President.

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artma...cle_4667.shtml

[strandinthewind]

You can rest assured they will find someway to use RR's death to there advantage. It does not really bother me that they will use it, I just think W in no way empowers the spirit of cooperation or friendliness amongst rivals that RR did nor does W have the ability to say "the buck stops here" like RR did. So, any comparison is incorrect IMO.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

You can rest assured they will find someway to use RR's death to there advantage. It does not really bother me that they will use it, I just think W in no way empowers the spirit of cooperation or friendliness amongst rivals that RR did nor does W have the ability to say "the buck stops here" like RR did. So, any comparison is incorrect IMO.

I think the "George" quote is being used incredibly innapropriately.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by dissention

I think the "George" quote is being used incredibly innapropriately.

Yep - Rove sometimes amazes me. I mean although I disagree with him almost all of the time, I think he is a cunningly smart guy. So, when he does things like this - I just do not get how he can think he can get away with that.

[ShangriLaTroubl]

Hmm that's sad..that they would exploit his death like that for their own benefit...I sure hope they rethink that decision.

Chris

[madformac]

Doesn't surprise me, after using the emotional blackmail of 9/11 to push his campaign I'm sure anything is fair game.....

[Sugar]

Good to see the Republicans themselves are denouncing this. Just goes to show Dubya is really just about his own agenda.

[wondergirl9847]

What is WRONG with people?!

[CKFive]

Well as one Democrat hoping for a Kerry win, I can only say I hope they do use them and are completely trounced for it.
That said, I’m not surprised, Bush’s (the younger) public rendering have always had a sort of shallow showmanship. The problem (depending on your point of view) is that he is surrounded by yes men that spend tax payer funded salaries coming up with ways to convince him these tacky offerings are appropriate and loved by the people.

Hello all I’m new to this forum.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by CKFive

Well as one Democrat hoping for a Kerry win, I can only say I hope they do use them and are completely trounced for it.
That said, I’m not surprised, Bush’s (the younger) public rendering have always had a sort of shallow showmanship. The problem (depending on your point of view) is that he is surrounded by yes men that spend tax payer funded salaries coming up with ways to convince him these tacky offerings are appropriate and loved by the people.

Hello all I’m new to this forum.

Welcome!

And it's great to see another liberal!

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by CKFive

Well as one Democrat hoping for a Kerry win, I can only say I hope they do use them and are completely trounced for it.
That said, I’m not surprised, Bush’s (the younger) public rendering have always had a sort of shallow showmanship. The problem (depending on your point of view) is that he is surrounded by yes men that spend tax payer funded salaries coming up with ways to convince him these tacky offerings are appropriate and loved by the people.

Hello all I’m new to this forum.

Welcome! Your point of view is interesting. I myself have always seen Bush as a figurehead who is really being told what to do by the man behind the curtain-Dick Cheney ( and the rest of the cast of PNAC). I also happen to think that the reason we don't see him in public very much is becuase he is either still drinking or suffers petit mal seizures from a vitamin b deficiency due to his long term drinking. Bob Woodward stated in his book that Bush takes some sort of mystery medication twice daily. I think it would also explain his bizarre speech patterns. The man attended two Ivy League schools after all. I would think they would include public speaking in their curriculum.
As for our taxpayer dollars, I would love to know how much that little golf cart that he is driving in my sig photo cost. It was produced exclusivey for him to drive at the G8 Summit.
Anyway, nice to have you around.

[strandinthewind]

HEY - I LIKE the golf cart LOL

Anyway - here is a cool take from the nytimes:

WHITE HOUSE LETTER
Trying on Reagan's Mantle, but It Doesn't Exactly Fit
By ELISABETH BUMILLER

Published: June 14, 2004

Washington -- George Bush begins today to try to refocus the nation on his presidency after a week when it seemed, at least from the constant replays of 1980's-era videotape on CNN, that Ronald and Nancy Reagan were fox-trotting in the White House again.

At times it also seemed as if Mr. Reagan were running for president one more time. This past weekend, the White House Web site prominently featured a collection of Reagan remembrances and a photo essay of Mr. Bush at the funeral for the former president. The Bush campaign Web site went one better, offering a video of Mr. Reagan uttering his most famous lines - "These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc" - interspersed with Mr. Bush's own words - "He had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character."

It was difficult to tell where the 40th president ended and the 43rd began, a blurring further promoted by Ken Mehlman, the president's campaign manager, who told an Iowa Republican Party convention on Saturday that Mr. Reagan's spirit lived on. "Every time an American soldier, sailor, airman or marine risks his or her life to ensure our security and peace, Ronald Reagan will be there," Mr. Mehlman said.

Of course, Mr. Bush's effort to wrap himself in the Reagan legacy drew plenty of skeptics, including a number of top Reagan officials, who said, all anonymously, that the presidencies could not have been more different. Mr. Reagan was pragmatic, they said, but Mr. Bush is ideological. Mr. Reagan was a unifier, they argued, while Mr. Bush has polarized.

"Bush wants to defeat his opponents, Reagan wanted his to join him," one former official of the Reagan White House said.

Leaving aside what many historians call a nostalgic rewriting of the Reagan era - plenty of Democrats despised and derided Ronald Reagan in a highly partisan time -there are still striking and significant contrasts in the politics, artifice and style of the two presidencies.

The first that leaps out is Mr. Reagan's ease with the camera and the way it captured his personality and seemed to enhance who he was. Americans felt they knew Mr. Reagan, who was little different off television than on.

"He had so much experience - he knew the expressions, the posture, the lighting, the angles," said Michael Evans, Mr. Reagan's White House photographer, who recalled that Mr. Reagan, so used to Hollywood sets, had no problems letting him into the Oval Office on historic occasions to shoot through the day.

"I'd say hello in the morning, and then he'd just totally ignore me," Mr. Evans said.

Mr. Bush, in contrast, is stiffer and often more tongue-tied on television than in person. He finds the camera so distracting that his staff quickly shoos photographers away. "He just likes to get it over with," said David Hume Kennerly, who has photographed every president since he was Gerald R. Ford's White House photographer. "If he had his choice, he wouldn't do it."

The second difference is in the business of politics. Mr. Bush, who is his own de facto campaign manager, loves the combat and gossip. His advisers say he knows his exact standing in recent polls, the names of his chairmen in the battleground states and probably the names of important county chairmen.

Mr. Reagan, in contrast, did not. "Are you kidding me?" said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was Mr. Reagan's last White House chief of staff. "He didn't want to hear about the political ups and downs." Mr. Reagan's detachment meant that his operatives handled the dirty work, while Mr. Bush's immersion has helped drive one of the most politically aggressive White Houses in decades.

The third difference is their style in the capital. Both men ran against Washington, but once elected, Mr. Reagan was determined to be different from Jimmy Carter, who had ignored the city's power elite. "When you come to town, there's a tendency as an officeholder to act as if you're a detached servant," Mr. Reagan said at a party he gave at the F Street Club in Washington when he was president-elect in 1980. He invited the capital's political, business and social leaders, many of them Democrats. "Well, I decided it was time to serve notice that we're residents."

The Bushes, in contrast, have gone to bed early and kept largely to themselves, socializing mostly with old friends from Texas and some of the president's Yale classmates. On the campaign trail, Mr. Bush takes frequent swipes at Washington, drawing big applause, but Democrats say his approach has helped polarize the mood in the capital.

In any case, Mr. Bush, not Mr. Reagan, is this year's candidate. After a hiatus of nearly two weeks - when he spent time in Europe, at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Sea Island, Ga., at the observances for Mr. Reagan and at a celebration in Texas for his father's 80th birthday - Mr. Bush will spend four of five days this week on the campaign trail.

Even so, Mr. Bush will have an odd opening act today, tied to yet another previous presidency: the unveiling of former President Bill Clinton's official portrait at the White House.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

HEY - I LIKE the golf cart LOL

You should, baby. Your tax dollars paid for it. Think he'll let us use it?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

You should, baby. Your tax dollars paid for it. Think he'll let us use it?

LOL - I guess I just do not get too upset over things like this. I mean they all do stuff like this. So, I just accept it, esp. when there are far larger things to be upset about

[DeeGeMe]

Well considering the Bush people didn't have a problem with using the images of flag-draped bodies being carried out of the WTC site, I'm sure that it will be no moral problem for them whatsoever to use Reagan to try and guarantee Shrubbie another 4-years in the White House. And you know the really sad part? There are far too many people out there who will have no problem with it and won't see it for what it really is.