WASHINGTON — He does not speak on the stump or appear in television ads. Campaign audiences rarely hear his name.
But aside from President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, no one has shaped the 2012 election more than George W. Bush — on the economy and on the foreign policy issues in the spotlight during the final presidential debate Monday.
When an audience member asked about Bush in the debate last week, Romney separated himself from what he characterized as Bush’s shortcomings on the budget deficit and on trade with China.
For Obama, Bush’s economic record offers a shield against voters’ wrath over high unemployment and slow growth. Obama benefits, too, from Americans’ weariness with the long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“He hardly ever comes up in focus groups,” said a top campaign adviser for Bush who asked not to be named.
But because of Bush, the adviser added, voters give Obama “a great deal of slack.”
Democratic strategists echo the point.
“I just don’t see how Obama could have survived these economic conditions without that history,” said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster and a former adviser to Bill Clinton.
Obama casts Romney’s policies as like Bush’s but as even further to the right, on taxes, regulation and a predilection for military confrontation with other countries.
Romney countered in last week’s debate: “President Bush and I are different people, and these are different times.” On trade, he said, “I’ll crack down on China. President Bush didn’t.” On the deficit, he said, “I’m going to get us to a balanced budget. President Bush didn’t.”
