The ultimate indictment of Bush

One of my favorite courses in college was on presidential speechmaking. Taught by David Eisenhower -- as in Dwight's grandson and Camp David -- we studied famous and noteworthy speeches by presidents throughout history. For our final project, Penn paid for us to visit any presidential library to study how a particular speech was conceived, written, debated internally, rewritten, debated some more, rewritten again, debated a little more, rewritten some more, delivered and received. I went to Independence, Missouri* to study Harry Truman's nomination acceptance speech in 1948. I won't go into details on the paper -- if you'd like to read all 30-plus pages, let me know and I'll gladly email it to you -- but suffice it to say it was a fascinating project in a fascinating course.

*Why I went to Independence, Missouri when I could have gone to Los Angeles (Nixon or Reagan), Austin (LBJ), Boston (JFK) or Atlanta (Carter), I'm not really sure. Needless to say, I was the only person in the class of 20 who studied Truman. I'd say at least half the class studied one of those five presidents in those other four locations. Not shocking, I guess.

Five years removed from this course, I've (not surprisingly) forgotten much of what I had learned. Which is unfortunate. But one of the few things that my brain has managed to retain is how the strategies of presidential contenders have shifted as the race goes from the primary phase to the general phase:

During the primaries, the contenders have historically appealed to their party's base. So the Democrats spew on about universal health care, the benefits of stem cell research and why we need to get the flock out of Iraq. The Republicans, on the other hand, go on about overturning Roe v. Wade, closing the borders and deregulating the economy. The theory behind this being, of course, that they need the support of their party's base to win the nomination. But once the nomination is locked up? The candidates move towards the center of the political spectrum in order to appeal to indendents and the moderates in their party, and quickly disavow or "clarify" past statements or supported legislation that may have skewed too far to the left or right and away from these groups' values.

But this year? You're not seeing any of this. Because in the midst of primary season, a moderate Republican, who has to get on his hands and knees for the support of the conservative base, has the nomination locked up, and a Democrat who's less polarizing (if not more moderate) than his rival has built up some serious momentum to win his party's nomination. This is not the normal recipe for a presidential election. But it's exactly what's happening.

I don't think we need to look any further than G-Dub's current 30% approval rating to know that he's not too popular right now. (How he ever was, I'll never know.) But if there was anything that could further prove just how sick people are of the dude and what he's done to the country, it's what we're seeing right now: two moderate politicians with a history of crossing party lines to get the job done are the favorites to win their respective party's nomination. And I have to believe that for G-Dub, who's the antithesis to this, this has to be one of the most damning possible indictments of his presidency as it (mercifully) winds down.