Texas GOP shuns Bush

George W. Bush's first 100 days back in Texas have provided at least one surprise: The state's GOP shuns him. Forty years after LBJ returned in disgrace, Robert Bryce reveals W.'s rough homecoming.

The Texas GOP provided the gubernatorial platform, much of the money, and more than 10 percent of the electoral votes that George W. Bush needed to get to the White House and stay there for two terms. But the 43rd president's first 100 days back in Texas are proving that the onetime favorite son is about as popular as swine flu. The state’s Republican politicians and candidates, who just a few years ago eagerly latched onto his electoral coattails, are staying away in droves.

"There’s no reason for anyone at this point to embrace the former president,” a top Texas GOP consultant tells me. “People have their own battles to fight. Why would they want to go back and try to defend torture or anything else?" He described the attitude of Republican politicians on the end of the Bush presidency as one of relief. The political environment for the Texas GOP is "toxic," he says, before adding with specificity: “it was toxic because of Bush."
“I don’t think Bush gives a damn what people think about him,” says a Texas Republican operative. “If history says he was a bad president, he doesn’t care.”

Republicans now have to set their targets on Obama and the Democrats, says the consultant, who insists on anonymity because of his ongoing dealings with the state's Republican officeholders and candidates, and their plan to triple the national debt over the next 10 years. “Why would we go back and try to defend the guy who doubled the debt in the last eight years?”

Read on.