The Best News Democrats Could Have Hoped For

Bush Trying to Help Republican Candidates

By LIZ SIDOTI

PHOENIX (AP) - Despite his low standing in the polls, President Bush is working to help Republican House and Senate candidates build their campaign war chests while promoting his own troubled agenda.

The president is expected to assume the campaign role more often in the coming months as the 2006 congressional election year begins.

``I, fortunately, have had my fill of campaigns, but there's nothing like walking into a room full of enthusiastic supporters to give you that spirit, to kind of put that wind behind your back,'' the second-term president told about 1,300 people at a dinner fundraiser for GOP Sen. Jon Kyl in Phoenix on Monday.

The president's appearance was expected to bring in at least $1.4 million for the Republican incumbent.

On Tuesday, Bush was slated to appear at a fundraising luncheon for Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave in Denver at the end of a two-day swing to pitch his immigration reform proposal.

OK, so given that Bush's approval ratings are lower than most women's waist-sizes, you have to ask yourself what help he can be.

If the Kyl event is any indication, Bush will be appearing only in safe Republican states where the incumbent stands a strong chance of winning. After all, even the Christofascists of the Washington Times say that Bush cost them a fairly even race for Governor of Virginia, a state Bush carried handily just a year earlier, and one that, while having elected Democratic governors with some consistency, is not a blue local state by any means. Democratic Lt. Gov. Kaine was leading in the polls running up to the election (in some, by as many as 15 points), however there was a sizable chunk of the electorate that was on the fence, as 12 percent of Virginia voters made their minds up just before or on Election Day.

Things got so bad for Bush that Kaine actually culled 22% of the Republican vote, this in a state that consistently gave Bush a 51% approval rating until this month, one of a handful of states to rate the President above the 50% mark.

So if he could kill a ticket in a state like that, where the hell is he going to fundraise?

He is still popular with the, errrrr, "base" (you remember the quote from "Farenheit 9-11"...'What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.'), as he has all but guaranteed the freezing of wealth among the richest one percent for the next several generations.

The money folks.

I'd never given much thought to what happens when you remove from the economic equation the transfer of money down the economic scale. I'm not talking about trickle-down economic theory. That's been shown to be a failure.

No, what I'm talking about is the wholesale transfer of wealth, not just through taxes, but thru family peccadilloes that cause heirs to splurge their wealth without creating replacement wealth.

I may have to give that a bit of thought.

Anyway, good news for Dems. If I'm a Pubbie, I'd be cringing.