Party loyalists love Bush but worry about effect on McCain’s run

Bush and McCain were together at a private fundraiser Tuesday night.

PHOENIX (AP) — John McCain’s complex relationship with President Bush can be summed up with a simple saying: can’t live with him, can’t live without him.

The president’s own popularity is bottom-of-the-barrel low. Even allies privately fret that he’s an albatross for the Republican looking to succeed him. Voters are crying out for change amid a prolonged Iraq war and a weakened economy.

But Bush also is beloved among GOP loyalists. He’s a proven campaigner who can raise serious money. Those are huge assets as Arizona Sen. McCain works to rally the Republican base and fill his coffers while facing the Democrats’ unrivaled enthusiasm and record-breaking fundraising.

The president and his would-be successor were appearing together Tuesday for the first time in nearly three months at an event that epitomized both elements of their tricky alliance — they were holding a fundraiser with GOP faithful at a private home, without the media to document it.

By the McCain campaign’s own planning, the only time Bush and McCain would be captured on camera would be after the event — and too late to make most evening newscasts — on the Phoenix airport tarmac in the shadow of Air Force One, just before the president departs. McCain’s fundraisers typically are closed to the press; the White House deferred to the campaign. No statements were expected.

Democratic opponent Barack Obama, an Illinois senator poised to become the Democratic nominee, got in a jab in advance.

“No cameras. No reporters. And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn’t want to be seen, hat-in-hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years,” Obama chided while campaigning in Nevada. “But the question for the American people is: Do we want to continue George Bush’s policies?”

For months now, Democrats have portrayed McCain as an extension of Bush. They have argued that McCain offers the same policies, despite his willingness to break with the Republican Party on a range of issues. And, they ran ads showing footage of Bush and McCain embracing each other in 2004, including one that said: “If all he offers is more of the same, is John McCain the right choice for America’s future?”

On Tuesday, the liberal group MoveOn.org unveiled a commercial linking images of Bush and McCain over the theme song of the Patty Duke Show, a 1960s sitcom about identical teenage cousins who “laugh alike, they walk alike, at times they even talk alike.” (The plot line, however, was about how different the two girls were.) The ad placement is a mere $80,000 and is scheduled to run nationally only on CNN and locally in Phoenix.

Bush and McCain last appeared together publicly the day after the Arizona senator sewed up the nomination in early March.