Bush, McCain don’t excite Baton Rouge
Ed Pratt
Posted: 05.01.2008 / 12:18 AM EDT
It was supposed to be an exciting week for Baton Rouge Republicans. President George W. Bush and the presumptive Republican nominee for president John McCain were coming to town.
But you know what they say about April. Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb.
Bush swept in on April 22 to raise money for a former Democrat turned Republican. There was something missing though. There were no big crowds craning to get a look at his motorcade.
Had this been three years ago, there would have been thousands of people with their square “W” stickers proudly stuck to the rear windows of their automobiles. There’s been a whole lot of scrapping going on since then. You can’t find a “W” sticker anywhere in Baton Rouge.
With Bush’s colossal failure after Hurricane Katrina, his war gone badly in Iraq and soaring gas prices dismantling family budgets, that “W” has become more of a Scarlet Letter than a winning initial.
The biggest news Bush made during his nearly 180-minute stop was the flood of complaints from folks stuck in a giant traffic jam resulting from major highways being shut down so that Bush could race through town AT RUSH HOUR!!!
John Kennedy, the Democrat turned Republican that Bush came to help, was not always a “W” fan. Three years ago he called Bush’s tax cuts “nonsense on a stick.”
Bush was so happy with his predicament that he was out of town 15 minutes earlier than planned, according some media accounts.
Next up, came McCain. He went to New Orleans on April 24 for a brief stop to blame the slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina on bad federal government policies and red tape. Hey wait, wasn’t his party in charge of bad policies and red tape at that time? Didn’t Brownie do a great job?
McCain sped out of New Orleans and made a stop in Baton Rouge. There was no huge outpouring of love for him here either. His comments weeks ago about the U.S. military being in Iraq for 100 years doesn’t sit well in a state that sends far more than its share of young men and women to war.
Here is the litmus test for how local Republicans feel about McCain and Bush. A Republican candidate in the middle of an extremely close congressional race (in a once-safe Republican district) has not used Bush or McCain in his newest political ads. In fact, the candidate is using old “W,” circa 1990, in his commercial.
Even so, by most accounts McCain is supposed to carry Louisiana. If he does, it won’t be because folks are excited by him or the current resident of the White House.
