Make the Bush Record the Issue

Neither was the Bush administration shy about exporting its government-busting ideology to Iraq, staffing the Iraqi reconstruction effort not with experts, but with twentysomething ideologues. A 24-year-old with no finance experience was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative—with no background in accounting—was put in charge of Iraq's $13 billion budget. If the goal was to convince people that government doesn't work, the Bush administration succeeded spectacularly—at home and abroad.

Democrats, on the other hand, believe government can be a resource for promoting the common good and thus are invested from the beginning in governing competently, efficiently and fairly. Their ideology demands it. And what better way for Democratic candidates to illustrate this contrast than by running against the Republican trifecta—the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court—that governed throughout most of Bush's eight years in office?

Democrats should and will use Bush and his destructive policies on the campaign trail as the primary example of what happens when people who hate government are elected to run it. The message will be that Bush isn't a historical anomaly: he's the embodiment of modern conservatism.

If Americans want willfully ineffective government, they'll have a Republican Party desperate for their votes. But with 70 percent of the American people thinking the nation is on the wrong track, it's clear they expect the opposite. As long as Democrats make that contrast clear—and Bush's record will be integral to that argument—they should be headed for victory in 2008.

Moulitsas, a NEWSWEEK contributor, is the publisher of dailykos.com, a progressive Web site that generally supports Democratic candidates.

© 2007