On the heels of shocking losses in traditionally liberal states, many Democrats have begun to question the strategy behind negative political campaigns that compare Republican challengers to former President George W. Bush, Politico.com reports.
Democratic nominees for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and for the Senate in Massachusetts, all ran smear campaigns that compared their opponents to the former president. All three Republican candidates upset their liberal counterparts.
"Voters are pretty tired of the blame game," said Democratic strategist Steve Hildebrand, a top aide on Obama’s presidential campaign, quoted by the news source. "What a stupid strategy that was."
Meanwhile, Obama, who ran a successful presidential campaign criticizing then-President Bush, has continued to point blame at the previous administration more than a year into his first term.
Fox News reports that Obama and his top advisors have negatively mentioned the Bush administration seven different times since last week’s upset in the Massachusetts Senate election.
"The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office," Obama said last week. "People are angry, and they’re frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years."
