Well, that didn’t last. Less than a year ago, Maryland’s lieutenant governor said he wanted to be a "bridge of steel” between Democrats and Republicans. Now that polls show that would be a bridge to nowhere, Michael Steele apparently has changed direction.
The Washington Post reported that Steele was a no-show at a recent fundraiser, where Bush was the headliner. Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report said:
It’s a lot harder to explain that you didn’t attend an event with the president because you were going to an event hosted by a senator from another state. I think you have to assume there is some element of him distancing himself not only from the president, but from the party.
Steele denies that he was running away from Bush:
I am very excited and very honored to have the support of my party leadership, to have the support of the president for my efforts to get to the United States Senate.
While it’s true that politics makes strange bedfellows, few would be “honored” to have the support of the worst president since 1945. That dubious honorific was bestowed on Bush in a recent national poll.
Maurice Carroll, Director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said:
Democrats just plain don’t like President Bush. His father, the 41st President, was voted out of the White House after one term. Nixon quit under fire. But most Democrats think Bush 43 wins the worst-president race.
And that's the plain truth.
