Washington – More than two-thirds of Americans say the country is “seriously off on the wrong track” under President Bush. Still, a remarkable thing is happening among Republican candidates for the White House: They are enthusiastically embracing Bush’s major policies and principles – even the most controversial and unsuccessful ones.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wants to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba open – even expand it – and endorses Bush’s failed plan to overhaul Social Security.
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, like Bush, sees tax breaks as the key to expanding health-insurance coverage.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is a stalwart defender of an unpopular war.
All the leading GOP candidates want to continue Bush’s tax cuts. And like Bush, they all oppose a bill to expand Medicaid for children.
The durability of the Bush agenda – with its commitment to tax cuts, the Iraq war and free-market solutions to health care and retirement – is in part a tribute to the president’s continued popularity among the Republican voters who matter most now, as the candidates head into the sprint to the first primaries.
But it is a politically risky agenda, especially in the general election, when the nominee must seek support from independent voters.
The electorate is hungry for a change of course. Only 27 percent of Republicans surveyed in a June Los Angeles Times/ Bloom berg News poll wanted a nominee to campaign on continuing Bush’s policies.
“No one wants to run saying, ‘Stay the course,”‘ said former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, who is supporting Romney.
Weber sees candidates distinguishing themselves from Bush more in their leadership style than by offering a bold agenda.
That has made the GOP race far different from the campaign Bush waged in 2000, when he ran not just to be president but to lead his party in a new direction. He called for a more inclusive “compassionate conservatism.”
Some Republicans say the dearth of big, new ideas in the 2008 campaign has prompted a lack of enthusiasm.
Giuliani has maintained his lead in national polls, but Romney appears to have widened his lead in key early-voting states. McCain is far weaker than most would have guessed a year ago.
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who plans to announce his candidacy this week, has said he wants to take on big issues, such as slowing the growth of government entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia has said he might enter the race if none of the GOP candidates offers a clear vision for how to change the country. So far, he does not much like what he hears.
“They are running to be president and not running to change the country,” said Rick Tyler, a Gingrich aide.
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