Why people continue to take Sid Blumenthal seriously is mysterious to me. He basically says here that attacking McCain as being a Bush clone will fail because "the public doesn't see Bush that way." Well, McCain does support Bush's policies in almost every area. He likes war, he likes big tax cuts for the rich, and he's got a bunch of lobbyists running the show. This sounds a lot like George Bush. What's the matter with saying so? If you make a compelling argument, people might even agree.
Substantively, maybe he's not exactly like Bush, but he supports most of Bush's most unpopular policies. Maybe tagging McCain as Bush III isn't going to work, but if it did it would be pretty shattering: McCain's a "maverick" after all, and the assertion that he takes his marching orders from Dubya would destroy his public image (and probably his self-conceit). Of course, McCain could avoid being tarred in this fashion by breaking with said unpopular Bush policies, but this does not really seem likely.
Blumenthal is one of the endless Democratic elites whose sole purpose seems to be to keep the Democratic Party from doing anything aside from mildly arguing against the Republicans on domestic policy grounds. Forget foreign policy--the GOP will win there. Forget taxes--the GOP will crush us. Just talk about how the Republicans want to gut Social Security. In other words, Blumenthal wants us to respond to the politics of fear with...the politics of fear. But then the Repubs really win if you try that--they're way better at fearmongering. You must counter fear with hope.
Boy, am I glad that Obama will win the nomination. At least Sid will have to find honest work.
