In addition, even if they
did have one, the party's desire to distance themselves from one of the most unpopular outgoing presidents in U.S. history doesn't help.
Let's say George W. Bush had the popularity of a Bill Clinton (I know, I know...it's a stretch, but hang in there).
:-)
He could have spent the last year positioning and grooming a Rudy, a McCain, a Romney...probably not a Thompson, regardless of the circumstances...but there would have been plenty of time to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse,
"to kind of catapult the propaganda," as Junior likes to say.
Without that, you have a bunch of fatally flawed Republicans staggering around, taking shots at each other and pinning their hopes on MoveOn.org being seen by the voting public as worse than Al Qaeda.
The Rudy / Petraeus thing reminds me of George Will's attempt to use Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." for Saint Ronnie The Gipper's re-election campaign:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_the_U.S.A._(song)
Political reactions
In late August 1984, the Born in the U.S.A. album was selling very well, its songs were all over the radio, and the associated tour was drawing considerable press. Springsteen shows at the Capital Centre outside of Washington, D.C. thus attracted even more media attention, in particular from CBS Evening News correspondent Bernard Goldberg, who saw Springsteen as a modern-day Horatio Alger story. Yet more notably, the widely-read, bow-tied conservative columnist George Will, after attending a show, published on September 13, 1984 a piece entitled "A Yankee Doodle Springsteen" in which he praised Springsteen as an exemplar of classic American values. He wrote: "I have not got a clue about Springsteen's politics, if any, but flags get waved at his concerts while he sings songs about hard times. He is no whiner, and the recitation of closed factories and other problems always seems punctuated by a grand, cheerful affirmation: 'Born in the U.S.A.!'"<1> The 1984 presidential campaign was in full stride at the time, and Will had connections to President Ronald Reagan's re-election organization. Will thought that Springsteen might endorse Reagan, and got the notion pushed up to high-level Reagan advisor Michael Deaver's office. Those staffers made inquiries to Springsteen's management which were politely rebuffed.
Nevertheless, on September 19, 1984, at a campaign stop in Hammonton, New Jersey, Reagan added the following to his usual stump speech:
"America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts; it rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about."
The campaign press immediately expressed skepticism that Reagan knew anything about Springsteen, and asked what his favorite Springsteen song was; "Born to Run" was the tardy response from staffers. Johnny Carson then joked on The Tonight Show, "If you believe that, I've got a couple of tickets to the Mondale-Ferraro inaugural ball I'd like to sell you."
During a September 22 concert in Pittsburgh, Springsteen responded negatively by introducing his song "Johnny 99", a song about an unemployed auto worker who turns to murder, "The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don't think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he's been listening to this one."
A few days after that, presidential challenger Walter Mondale said, "Bruce Springsteen may have been born to run but he wasn't born yesterday," and then claimed to have been endorsed by Springsteen. Springsteen manager Jon Landau denied any such endorsement and the Mondale campaign issued a correction.