Republican Strategist: McCain is running "Bush campaign on steroids"

...others, including some sympathetic Republicans, have begun to quietly question whether McCain and Palin are well served by strategists so firmly anchored in the Bush establishment when the candidates are presenting themselves as a "team of mavericks" and agents of change. One Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush administration described the situation as a paradox in which Palin is especially vulnerable.

"If the McCain campaign is trying to prop up Palin as its change agent, and its inoculation against the 'third Bush term' rap, then why on earth is she surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers?" said the Republican loyalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both."

Good questions, now here's the answer: John McCain has embraced George W. Bush, both literally and figuratively, despite what Bush did to McCain in the Republican primaries of 2000, and despite the fact that McCain CLAIMS to be a change agent, "reformer," etc. Frankly, that's a load of horse manure. McCain is about as close to Bush as hand and glove, or perhaps "Dr. Evil" and "Mini Me." Clones, in other words. One of my favorite top McCain advisors is Douglas Holtz-Eakin, "who served as chief economist for Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, is now McCain's domestic policy adviser."  Greeeaaat, just what we need at this time of economic crisis, more of the same people (and their bizarre "conservative" ideology) who got us into this mess in the first place!

Behind the scenes, there's some serious grumbling in the Republican ranks. For instance, the Washington Post article quotes a Republican strategist about the McCain campaign: "It's insane to me that at the same time that it's running saying it's not going to be the Bush administration, this campaign looks like the Bush campaign on steroids."

Meanwhile, as McCain continues on his merry way, calling the "fundamentals" of the economy "strong," there appears to be a populist revolt - a "Main Street bailout backlash" - brewing in places like Manassas Park.

The anti-bailout sentiment appears to cut across class lines. You hear it from one end of Manassas Drive, the main drag through town, to the other -- from the small, Cape Cod-style homes built with G.I. Bill money after World War II to the muscle-bound houses newly risen along the golf course.

"I'm worried that the taxpayers are going to wind up paying for all this," said Arlena Elbaraka, 38, who lives in the manicured neighborhood of Blooms Crossing.

"Who ends up losing from all this? Us, right?"

Even conservative ideologue Bill Kristol has some major misgivings about the McBush approach to dealing with our financial problems:

...is the administration's proposal the right way to do this? It would enable the Treasury, without Congressionally approved guidelines as to pricing or procedure, to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of financial assets, and hire private firms to manage and sell them, presumably at their discretion There are no provisions for - or even promises of - disclosure, accountability or transparency. Surely Congress can at least ask some hard questions about such an open-ended commitment.

Yeah, some hard questions would be nice, both about the Bush approach to bailing out Wall Street (while screwing over "Main Street," apparently), as well as to the fact that McCain's campaign is stocked to the gills with corporate lobbyists and former Bush Administration officials, to the extent that even a Republican strategist is calling it the "Bush campaign on steroids."  Needless to say, that is NOT the change we need in this country!

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