Bush Advisers Predominate in Romneyworld

With most Americans regarding the George Bush/Dick Cheney era as a nightmare, one would think voters would be paying more attention to who Mitt Romney has surrounded himself in terms of top advisers.  Indeed, a Romney administration would be best described as a third term for Bush/Cheney based on who will be advising Romney on both economic and foreign policy.   Yes, many want "change" but do we really want a change back to the policies that created the nation's near depression?  Not surprisingly Romney and the GOP are trying to keep a curtain pulled across who is surrounding Romney as he blathers vague and continually changing "policies." - policies that change almost hourly depending on what audience Romney and Ryan are addressing.  A piece in Politico looks at this frightening reality.  Here are highlights:

Mitt Romney's running as far as he can from George W. Bush.  In all three presidential debates, Romney's raced from the last Republican president's policies — claiming he's got new ideas for foreign policy, the deficit and energy

But for all of Romney's efforts to divorce himself from Bush, behind the scenes there's one critical way he's given the era a full embrace: its people.

Romney's brought on a cadre of Bush officials to serve as his senior policy advisers, lead his presidential transition effort and help him raise millions to fuel his run — the pillars of his campaign and a potential administration.

On foreign policy,  .  .  .  .   17 of Romney's 24 special advisers and the vast majority of his issue co-chairs worked in the Bush administration. Some of them are big names, like former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, former CIA Director Michael Hayden and State Department vet Paula Dobriansky.

His transition team, which would staff up a potential administration, is run by Bush alum Michael Leavitt, former Health and Human Services secretary; Josh Bolton, Bush's chief of staff; Robert Zoellick, former World Bank president; and Emil Henry, who worked in Bush's Treasury Department, have also been in on the planning.

Democrats believe linking Romney with Bush can be effective on the campaign trail.  "There is still a holdover that George Bush unnecessarily got us into war and then prolonged it, and that foreign policy combined with a really weak domestic policy sort of created the hole that we're in," said Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen.

Further, Rosen said that branding Romney with Bush is effective because he has "projected an old-fashioned view of the Soviet Union, of women, of education, of energy, and I think that continuing to tie him to sort of what are icons of the past helps Obama on his being a leader for the future."

Other key Romney advisers on domestic and international economic policies and other policy areas include some of the most influential members of Bush's team — though they haven't always advocated the policies Romney is now pushing on the campaign trail

The head of Romney’s national security transition team — Robert Zoellick — was also one of the main architects of George W. Bush’s international economic policies. Zoellick served as U.S. Trade Representative from 2001 to 2005, when he negotiated a series of free trade deals, and then as deputy secretary of State from 2005 to 2006.

It is totally unreasonable to expect a new approach from a Romney administration when he has surrounded himself with the same architects that brought us a disastrous economy and disastrous, unnecessary wars.  Another piece in the New York Times continues this theme of looking at who Romney seeks as advisers and spokesmen especially on issues of race.  It clearly underscores the increasingly blatant racism of today's GOP.  Here are excerpts from this column:

The saying goes: A man is known by the company he keeps.  If that is true, what does the company Mitt Romney keeps say about him?

This week Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama again, as he did in 2008. That apparently set John Sununu, a co-chairman of the Romney campaign, on edge.  .  .  .  .  In Sununu’s world of racial reductionism, Powell’s endorsement had a more base explanation: it was a black thing. 

Sununu is the same man who said that the president performed poorly in the first debate because “he’s lazy and disengaged.” He is also the same man who said of the president in July, “I wish this president would learn how to be an American.” 

Could Sununu be unaware that many would register such comments as coded racism? Or was that the intent?   Sununu has apologized, somewhat, for his racial attack on Powell’s motives. But what should we make of all this? 

We have a very racially divided electorate. As The Washington Post reported Thursday, “Obama has a deficit of 23 percentage points, trailing Republican Mitt Romney 60 percent to 37 percent among whites, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News national tracking poll.” 

The report pointed out that nearly 80 percent of nonwhites support Obama, while 91 percent of Romney’s supporters are white. I worry that Sununu’s statements intentionally go beyond recognizing racial disparities and seek to exploit them. 

What does that say about Romney, and what does it say about his campaign’s tactics?  Remember: A man is known by the company he keeps.  To understand Sununu, it is important to understand his political history.