'I thought it looked defensive for John to distance himself from me,' Bush wrote. McCain looks bad in Bush book

Sen. John McCain never asked then- President George W. Bush to campaign for him in 2008, though Bush thinks he could have helped the Arizona senator.

In his forthcoming memoir, “Decision Points,” Bush explores his “complex relationship” with McCain.


“I understood he had to establish his independence,” Bush wrote. “I thought it looked defensive for John to distance himself from me. I was confident I could have helped him make his case. But the decision was his. I was disappointed I couldn’t do more to help him.”

The 43rd president suggests his opponent for the Republican nomination in 2000 blew an opportunity to capitalize politically on the financial crisis eight years later. Without saying it explicitly, Bush portrays then-Sen. Barack Obama as more presidential than McCain in his handling of the financial crisis.

Bush’s approval rating bottomed out at 25 percent the week before the 2008 election. While he left office as one of the most unpopular presidents ever, Bush remained relatively popular with some elements of the GOP’s conservative base. It was partly a need to shore up this right flank that pushed McCain toward elevating Sarah Palin from obscure Alaska governor to his running mate.

After Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy in September 2008, with the global economy on the verge of a meltdown, Bush thought McCain could turn the rotten economy to his advantage.

“Our party controlled the White House, so we were the natural target for the finger-pointing,” he writes. “Yet, I thought the financial crisis gave John his best chance to mount a comeback. In periods of crisis, voters value experience and judgment over youth and charisma. By handling the challenge in a statesmanlike way, John could make the case that he was the better candidate for the times.”

He didn’t.

Instead, McCain called Bush on Sept. 24, a few hours before the president would deliver his nationally televised speech on the necessity of the Troubled Asset Relief Program bailouts, to demand he convene a White House meeting on the rescue package.

“I asked John how he was feeling about the campaign, but he went directly to the reason for his call,” Bush said.

Bush asked him to hold off. He was worried that such a meeting would undercut Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s negotiations with congressional leaders. Indeed, none of Bush’s top advisers were keen on calling a meeting.

McCain disregarded Bush’s plea. He issued a statement calling for a meeting, went on TV just “minutes” after his call to Bush and “suspended” his campaign so he could work on the bill.

It proved a pivotal moment that allowed Obama to paint McCain as “erratic in crisis.” It also forced Bush’s hand, who felt like he didn’t have a choice after McCain went public.

“I could see the headlines: ‘Even Bush Thinks McCain’s Idea Is a Bad One,'" he writes.

Meanwhile, Bush describes Obama as gracious.

“Anytime the president calls, I will take it,” Bush quotes Obama saying, agreeing to interrupt his campaign to fly to Washington.

Before the sit-down in the Cabinet room, Bush had a private moment with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“She clearly suspected that my motive was to sabotage the Democrats,” Bush recalls, reflecting on their conversation. “Like a volcano ready to erupt, she said, ‘Barack Obama will be our spokesman.'”

He describes Obama’s “calm demeanor” during his conversation with the group.

“I thought it was smart when he informed the gathering that he was in constant contact with Hank,” Bush said. “His purpose was to show that he was aware, in touch, and prepared to help get a bill passed.”

When Bush turned to McCain, the senator had nothing to say. He passed.

“I was puzzled,” Bush wrote. “He had called for this meeting. I assumed he would come prepared to outline a way to get the bill passed.”

Toward the end of the meeting, McCain finally spoke. Bush complains that he spoke only “in general terms” about how hard it would be for Republicans to back the TARP bill.

“What had started as a drama quickly descended into a farce,” he concludes. “I was watching a verbal food fight, which would have been comical except that the stakes were so high. ... After everyone had their chance to vent, I decided there was nothing more we could accomplish.”

This account corroborates much of what Paulson already wrote in “On the Brink,” his February memoir (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704022804575041280125257648.html).

“McCain's comments were anticlimactic, to say the least,” Paulson wrote. “His return to Washington was impulsive and risky, and I don't think he had a plan in mind."

Bush also notes disagreements with McCain on tax cuts, Medicare reform and terrorist interrogation. He expresses gratitude that McCain courageously backed the 2007 troop “surge” in Iraq, which ended up working.

“The surge gave him a chance to create distance between us, but he didn’t take it,” Bush said.

The former president also thinks McCain’s old age partly explains why he lost.

“Like Dad in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain was on the wrong side of generational politics,” he said. “Electing him would have meant skipping back a generation. By contrast, 47-year-old Barack Obama represented a generational step forward.”

McCain, now 74, easily won a fifth term this week. He was only 63 in 2000 when he upset Bush in the New Hampshire primary. In a bitter nomination battle, McCain ran an ad comparing Bush to President Bill Clinton in the South Carolina primary.

“That crossed the line,” Bush said. “I went on air to counterpunch.”

Hard feelings were eventually patched over, and McCain campaigned with Bush during the 2000 general and 2004 reelection.

Bush’s much-anticipated book comes out Tuesday. POLITICO obtained a copy at a Washington bookstore.

In the two years since he left office, as Obama increasingly struggled to connect with swing voters, Bush has earned a second look from many Americans who soured on him after his 2004 victory. A Gallup Poll in July found that 45 percent of adults hold a favorable view of him, including 85 percent of Republicans.

All along, he has expressed confidence that the passage of time would validate his tenure and that historians would view him more favorably. The book, coming just a week after his party retook the House, is an important first step in Bush’s efforts to rehabilitate his legacy.

Bush’s 25 percent job approval rating during the week before the 2008 election essentially matched Richard Nixon’s on the eve of his 1974 resignation.

“President Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, once regarded as one of the worst mistakes in presidential history, is now viewed as a selfless act of leadership,” Bush writes in the epilogue. “And it is quite something to hear the commentators who once denounced President Reagan as a dunce and warmonger talk about how the Great Communicator had won the Cold War.”