“The political dynamics for winning a second presidential term often differ markedly from winning the first. So don’t be surprised by many eerie parallels between Obama’s 2012 reelection bid and Bush’s 2004 campaign,” writes Tom Schaller, professor of political science, in his latest commentary for Salon.
Shaller argues that many of the strategies Obama will need to use to win the election – including emphasizing things that could have gone wrong, but didn’t and portraying his opponent as an out-of-touch elitist – are the ones that George W. Bush used against John Kerry in 2004.
“The president may be asking Americans to look ‘forward’ in 2012, but the best preview of his reelection campaign can be found by looking backward eight years,” he concludes.
The full piece, “Using Bush’s playbook,” appeared on the Salon website on Friday, May 11.
