Obama should continue striking this theme. Remember how the Republicans successfully hung Clinton on Gore in 2000; Gore’s big mistake there was to distance himself from Clinton, whose popularity was high at the time–more than twice Bush’s rating now, Clinton was in the 60% range. Obama could easily hang McCain with 28% Bush, seeing as how McCain’s policies are very, very close to the current president’s, whose unfavorables are higher than Nixon’s just before he was forced to resign.

The beauty of this tactic is that it’s policy based, not distraction based, and draws upon huge dissatisfaction not only in the country in general, but from within the Republican ranks as well. Bush is not only divisive for the country, he is also now divisive within his own party. And while McCain and his supporters have tried to distance themselves from Bush, they find that when pressed, they cannot–and more importantly, do not want to–draw that distinction. A prime example, via My DD:

BLITZER: You just heard Congressman Van Hollen say that he represents a third Bush term. You know how unpopular the job approval numbers are right now.

[HOUSE GOP WHIP ROY] BLUNT: I don’t think anybody believes that. I think everybody does believe from his record that here is somebody who has always been willing to complain about the way business was done in Washington. And, frankly, people want to see that…

BLITZER: When it comes to domestic economic issues, what is the major difference between President Bush’s policies, what he wants to do, and what John McCain would do if he were president?

BLUNT: Well, I think what John McCain wants to do is continue these pro-growth tax policies that our friends on the other side have been talking…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: But that’s what President Bush wants to do too.

BLUNT: And there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with that.

BLITZER: So it would be in effect a third Bush term when it came to pro-growth tax policies?

BLUNT: It would be. I think it would be. And I think that’s a good thing.

Emphasis mine. Rather amazing, isn’t it, how Blunt morphs from “Nobody believes that” to “I believe it, and it’s a good thing” so quickly. It’s pretty laughable when you know what to look for.

And that’s the key: McCain doesn’t want to be seen stating emphatically that he’s no George W. Bush, that he thinks Bush is a failure. McCain will spout on about how he’s criticized this president, how he was the first and the loudest out there to say Bush made mistakes–but when it comes down to it, he’s not gonna say that Bush was a bad president. McCain is in bed with Bush in terms of policies on the economy, Iraq, energy, taxes, abortion, foreign policy, gun control, health care, corporate welfare, deregulation, stacking the Supreme Court with right-wing constructionist judges, the list goes on. Ironically, McCain is also the same as Bush, from the right-wing perspective, on immigration, which will hurt him with Republicans. Hell, McCain even voted with Bush on torture, when it came down to it. The biggest contrast with Bush is supposed to be campaign finance reform, but with McCain violating campaign finance laws and ripping the laws’ spirit to shreds, there’s really not much of an actual difference there, either.

With this line of attack, Obama can (a) be telling the truth, (b) stick to policy debates instead of trivial distractions, and (c) go way negative on McCain without actually going negative–and McCain would have a hard time saying how being equated to Bush is a “negative” attack without alienating his core base.