Bush Backs McCain

Republicans are starting to line up behind their nominee, including the president, who officially gave his blessing at the White House on Wednesday, along with an offer to help John McCain campaign. That couldn’t make Democrats happier, who long to depict McCain as what Howard Dean called “another out-of-touch Bush Republican.”

AP via Google:

Bush’s praise of McCain as the party’s next standard-bearer came a day after the senator sealed the GOP nomination by gaining the required 1,191 delegates. Republicans won’t officially nominate McCain until early September at the party’s national convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Hoping to spoil the GOP party, Democrats wasted no time in tagging McCain’s candidacy as a continuation of the Bush presidency.

“John McCain just doesn’t get it,” said Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman. “All he offers is four more years of the failed Bush economy, an endless war in Iraq and shameless hypocrisy on ethics reform. The fact is, the American people want change, not another out-of-touch Bush Republican, and Democrats welcome the opportunity to draw this contrast for voters.”

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AP photo / Charles Dharapak