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the democrats? one of the reasons that the message of real change resonated so much back in 2008, one of the reasons that that actually worked for barack obama in that election, is because the country writ large had ceased to be delighted by the george w. bush administration. and it was not just the war in iraq. or the great recession. or warrantless wiretapping. or torture, or, or, or, or, or. it was also stuff like this. this is the u.s. state department's annual report on global terrorism from 2003. every year the state department will put together a report like this detailing incidents of terrorism around the world. and the next report after this one, the one that was slated for 2004, showed that despite the bush administration's claims that we were winning the war on terror, despite those constant claims, the number of terrorist attacks had actually gone up to its highest level in the two decades the state department had been publishing this report. what was the bush administration's solution to that problem?
their solution was to stop publishing the report. the push administration just eliminated that annual terrorism report once it included something very politically inconvenient. the bush administration had a habit of doing that. you don't like the data being provided. get rid of the data. a year earlier the bush administration, which was a big proponent of charter schools, they were faced with a new report from their own education department showing that charter school kids were falling behind public school kids. how do you deal with your own administration's data on underperforming charter schools? well, you cut back on the data that you collect about charter schools. the bush administration just announced they'd be collecting less data going forward. in 2003, after a bush administration labor department report detailed mass layoffs in the manufacturing sector, the bush administration just announced that they were going to stop publishing information about mass layoffs in the manufacturing sector. their approach was essentially, we get rid of the data pointing to a problem, maybe the problem
pennsylvania. and then the next day, george w. bush lost pennsylvania. last time around as well the sunday before the election, there's republican john mccain, campaigning in pennsylvania. and then john mccain loses pennsylvania. right before the election, you can set your watch by it. the republican presidential contender will go and campaign in pennsylvania. and every year the media responds by saying, wow the republican is going to pennsylvania. maybe the republicans are going to win pennsylvania this year. does this mean the republicans are planning on winning pennsylvania this year? and the republicans say, yes, we're going there because we're going to win pennsylvania and they lose it every year. the reason they do this every year is because they want to be seen as super confident. they want to be seen as so confident they are expanding the map. they want to create the impression that not only are they going to win, they're going to win big, so they don't even need to go to any of these so-called battleground states anymore. they have locked all those up. they have the meat and potatoes. they are going for gravy.
tonight just outside cincinnati the romney campaign attempted to underscore that message by holding a big mega rally at a giant town square in westchester, ohio, a mega rally featuring nearly 100 governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, and other republican luminaries. 100 republican surrogates all there in person. to talk about the real change that you will get if you elect mitt romney. so who exactly did mitt romney enlist to sell this message of what real change he is offering america? the headliners were george w. bush's secretary of state, george w. bush's secretary of labor, george w. bush's homeland security director, george w. bush's budget director. and last but not least, the current republican speaker of the house! mitt romney, change you can believe in, if you really like george w. bush, and if you like the current republican congress. then we're the kind of real change you're looking for. who cast this thing?
page politics, nbc news deputy political editor domenico. good morning to you. >> good morning, alex. >> so we're going to talk about the front-runner right now in terms of the veepstakes. we have ohio senator rob portman. a layman might say, hey, he'd give mitt romney a key swing state, it's a slam dunk. but it's not that simple, is it? >> no. we've seen in a lot of different polls that, in fact, in ohio, where rob portman is from, maybe he makes a difference by a point or two, maybe. and that's within the margin of error. of course a point or two could matter in a very close state. he brings a lot to the table as far as confidence, trusted in d.c. he could give someone like romney, someone like what biden does for obama where he's sort of a lee sayson to capitol hill. but the big negative for rob portman is he was george w. bush's budget director. we've already seen him try to put some distance between himself and the former president this week. even though he says he's not. because he said he was frustrated by budgets and
submission to sharia. when he found out that the logo was actually from the bush administration, he retracted his claim. general william boykin, the guy that george w. bush inexplicably appointed to a position. when "the wall street journal" tried to reporter who this boykin guy was, the egyptian ploger, quote, remained resolute in her belief that a former official who served in such a high position in the pentagon would not make such accusations without proof. wanna bet?! there was one other source of information for these anti-american egyptian protesters. quote, a blog post about american aid to egypt that was based on a news story posted on lucianne.com, a site ran by lucianne goldberg, an american conservative who played a central role in the monica lewinsky scandal. so the source of the information
almost only be filed under very, very bad. with perhaps a subheading of, and then it got worse. the controversy over when he left bain capital has only grown, and every attack his campaign has tried to launch has boom ranged back at them since then. now the leaders of mr. romney's own party are calling on him to release his own tax returns which he is still steadfastly refusing to do. they're criticizing the romney campaign not just for the tax return thing, but for how badly they're handling everything they're not handling as a campaign. every time it has seems it couldn't get worse for romney, they have gotten worse. today, in the middle of his already bad tine, the worst thing yet happened. president george w. bush for the first time on camera endorsed him. >> i told -- pretty unattractive metaphor, but i said i crawled out of the swamp, and i'm not
it would have been better if they would have been called the cheney tax cuts instead? you have to hunt george w. bush interviews on youtube. it's cheney hosting fund-raisers for romney at his house. he won't even say george w. bush's name on the record. dick cheney is the guy republicans have welcomed back to capitol hill today to argue for his chosen policies on the military. while george w. bush was making his 22nd endorsement that included referring to politics as a swamp he crawled out of in an hour-long interview with an obscure think tank. this california college think tank listed the interview privately. if he looks teeth on edge while he's making the endorsement, maybe it's because he seems to recognize that no one wants to run with him as the wind beneath their wings. do not count george bush out.
exactly when it was he ran for president, thereby implicitly reminding everyone who he succeeded in office. george w. bush endorsing mitt romney to be, i guess, his one after successor. joining us is wayne slater, the co-author of "bush's brain." you reported from one of the fund-raiser. >> great to be with you. >> today, we had george w. bush finally endorse mitt romney on camera for the first time. he also released a book about how to get 4% economic growth, which is something he did not achieve as president. when president obama was running tonight in bush's backyard in texas, did he seem to you to be running against bush's legacy? >> absolutely. it was a remarkable thing today as i sat there listening to barack obama talk about the last near decade, he mentioned it two or three times, at one point, made a reference to the bush tax cuts. he effectively was saying, i am talking about the guy who 150 miles away, up in dallas, texas,
he was going back to private lives. he doesn't think it's helpful to have former presidents involved in the election. but we do have president bush today in the middle of the campaign season releasing a book on economic policy. and making this endorsement of mitt romney while at the same time saying he can do well without me. at the same time that he did it, are we seeing sort of two sides of the coin or maybe two edges of the sword from george w. bush in terms of what he sees his legacy as in this campaign and who it attends to? >> one of the things that is important to understand about george w. bush is that while he and the people around him like to say they don't care as much about the legacy, they don't care about the politics, he cares deeply about his legacy. and both karl rove and others, bushies from the past, are working actively around the bush institute and elsewhere to promote the ideals.