Bush Endorses McCain and offers to campaign with him—or stay away

Wed, March 05, 2008 - 2:44 PM

President Bush made it official today. He’ll campaign for John McCain if it helps him -- and he’ll campaign against him if that helps him. Get it? Oh, that presidential humor.

Here’s the exact Bush quote from the Rose Garden as the two former rivals stood shoulder to shoulder outside the Oval Office.

“Look, if it – if my showing up and endorsing him helps him, or if I’m against him and it helps him – either way, I want him to win,” Bush said.

McCain and Bush were political combatants back in 2000. McCain beat Bush in the New Hampshire primary that year, but McCain was stopped dead in South Carolina, thanks to hardball tactics by the Bush team. All that was swept aside on the day after McCain accrued enough delegates to become the Republican party’s nominee and Mike Huckabee left the race. McCain and his wife Cindy even arrived at the White House a little early for their lunch date with the president.

McCain sidestepped questions about whether it was really a plus to have someone with such low approval ratings on his side.

McCain said, “I hope that the president will find time from his busy schedule to be out on the campaign trail with me, and I will be very privileged to have the opportunity of being again on the campaign trail with him – only slightly different roles this time.”

Bush still has a Midas touch when it comes to fund-raising among the party faithful, so he could be very helpful to the McCain effort. And it never hurts to be seen on equal footing with the president.

Interestingly, there was no lectern with the Presidential Seal or other trappings of the presidency for the overtly political event. Evidently, the famous Rose Garden setting was enough to give the event a stamp of presidential authority.

-- Marsha Mercer