Views on McCain: A Bush redux?

WASHINGTON — The joke, beloved by those who see George W. Bush on a glide path toward the presidential hall of shame, says there's talk of a third term for him: 20 years to life.

The campaign-trail talk, embraced by those who want to put a Democrat in the White House, also talks about a third term for Bush, channeled through John McCain.

"After casting himself as a maverick in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush," the Democratic National Committee said in announcing an almost-daily effort to morph McCain into Bush.

Says Hillary Clinton: "He looked at the hole that President Bush has dug us into and says, why not more? Let's go deeper.."

Says Barack Obama: "John McCain has offered this country a lifetime of service, and we respect that, but what he's not offering is any meaningful change from the policies of George W. Bush."

Against the backdrop of a president whose approval rating has reached historic lows, the Democratic strategy seems like a no-brainer. But the record – and McCain's spinners – indicates it's not that simple.

While Bush and McCain share many core GOP beliefs – against abortion and same-sex marriage, for gun ownership and fiscal restraint, etc. – there are differences. To some, the differences are overshadowed by similarities – perceived and real – on the two issues sure to drive the outcome: the war and the economy.

And that makes linking McCain to Bush a winning strategy for Democrats, says Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate.

"I think they will be able to make the case on the two most important issues . . . that (McCain) is not offering much different than Bush on the economy and he is essentially seeking some form of victory which may be totally ephemeral in Iraq," Gans said.

McCain aides are armed and ready to checklist the differences that distinguish their candidate from the president. The linkage effort, says Douglas Holz-Eakin, McCain's top policy adviser, is ludicrous "because he disagrees with Bush on a lot of things."

The checklist includes: McCain's opposition to interrogation tactics used on terrorist suspects; his much-earlier-than-Bush concern about climate change; his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; his support for allowing the importation of prescription drugs; and his backing for means testing for the prescription drug program for older Americans.

And on the big two issues – the war and the economy – Holz-Eakin said McCain has distinguished himself from the president by his early criticism of how the war was being run and by taking an economic approach based on more than tax policy.

"I would say the president has come to John McCain's view on the war. He was right. He was the one who said you need more people and a counterinsurgency strategy, and he has been saying it since 2003," Holz-Eakin said. "They finally came to him. If there is a lockstep here it is Bush finally getting smart."

But regardless of whose idea it was, the war strategy still polls poorly among voters, something McCain believes will change when, and if, conditions in Iraq improve significantly.

McCain also differs with Bush by calling for the shutdown of the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bush believes the facility remains necessary because there is no other viable place to hold the detainees. McCain disagrees.

"We can't torture or treat inhumanely suspected terrorists we have captured," he told the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles. "I believe we should close Guantanamo and work with our allies to forge a new international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control."

For McCain aides, a chief effort differentiate him from Bush is embedded in differing approaches on fiscal policy.

"It's primarily on spending and earmarks," said Mark McKinnon, a longtime Bush confidante now working for McCain.

On ABC's "This Week," McCain recently took a direct shot at Bush's fiscal efforts.

"Two years in a row, last two years, the president of the United States has signed into law two big-spending, pork-barrel-laden bills worth $35 billion," he said.

In his stump speech, McCain often says Republicans "let spending lurch completely out of control."

In an early and high-profile split with Bush, McCain voted in 2001 against the tax-cut measure championed by the then-new president. At the time of the vote (when he was one of two GOP senators who opposed it), McCain's most vocal opposition centered on his belief that the tax cut was disproportionately skewed to benefit the wealthy. He now also says he opposed the bill because it did not include spending cuts.

McCain now also says he favors making the cuts permanent, a change critics say is a flip-flop. But McCain pitches it as a decision necessitated by the nation's current economic woes. Balancing the budget, he said recently should "still should be a goal ././. (but) the goal right now is to get the economy going again."

Recent polling shows the Democrats' effort to link Bush and McCain remains a work in progress. A late March survey by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press offered positive numbers for a GOP candidate trying to succeed a widely unpopular GOP president.

"Independent voters, who generally disapprove of President Bush's performance in office, mostly believe that McCain will take the country in a different direction, a factor which works to McCain's advantage," the survey concluded, noting that only 37 percent of the potentially pivotal independent voters said McCain would continue Bush's policies.

Those same independents – by a two-to-one margin – said they disapprove of Bush's job performance.

McKinnon acknowledges the challenge facing McCain but says it's not an unusual one.

"I think it's a challenge for any member of a party to follow any president of the same party," he said.

History quantifies the challenge. Since the beginning of the 20th century, only three presidents (Republicans William Howard Taft in 1908, Herbert Hoover in 1928 and George H.W. Bush in 1988) have been elected to succeed a president from their own party.

Gans said McCain has more than history to overcome.

"I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is not only is he trying to succeed a president from his own party but a president who is disliked by two-thirds of the people," Gans said. "The presumption at this point has to be that McCain will not be able to escape his views which tie him to Bush."

But, despite the coordinated effort to link Bush and McCain, there is the occasional Democratic comment that skews off message.

"Either Democrat would be better than John McCain. And all three of us would be better than George Bush," Obama said last week in Reading, Penn.