Report: Ignoring Democrats Harmed Bush The Son

An exhaustive study of the lobbying styles of President Bush and his father, former President George H.W. Bush, suggests that the current president will have difficulty pushing legislation in his final year and a half because he ignored Democrats during his first six years in office.

The study, soon to be published in the authoritative White House Studies review, also blames Democrats for pushing the president back when he initially pursued a bipartisan approach to governing. Quoting an adviser to the former president, author Ken Collier of Stephen F. Austin State University of Texas writes:

"In the Bush 43 legislative affairs office they really didn't work very closely with the Democrats at all and that's about to become a huge issue now as they attempt to go forward with a Democratic majority. They've spent six years ignoring the Democrats in many ways and now they're going to have to figure ways to work with them. It's going to be tough."

That difficulty could increase with the expected departure of a key White House lobbying aide who focuses on the Senate.

"They have got to fill that position with the right person. It's only the Senate where we have a chance to make deals," said a Bush adviser.

In comparing the styles, Collier suggests that the former president, Bush the father, had a better background to make friends in Congress. And, he notes in a draft provided to U.S. News, the former president needed it because he faced a Democratic Congress, whereas his son had a friendly, Republican-controlled Congress that was reliably on his side on most issues.

And Collier notes that the former president arrived in the White House already allied with many Democratic legislative friends while his son, after seeing Democrats pick apart some of his father's programs, came to Washington distrusting the opposition party.

By Paul Bedard