GOP Hopefuls Face Post-Bush Quandary

Openness to diverging views would help, Newsweek says
By Sam Biddle,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 20, 2008 5:39 PM CST
GOP Hopefuls Face Post-Bush Quandary
Republican presidential hopefuls, from left, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, stand before the crowd prior to a Republican debate on FOX News Channel in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Jan. 10, 2008. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain)   (Associated Press)

Amid debate jabs and funding worries, GOP presidential hopefuls have a bigger problem: what kind of Republican to be in the impending post-Bush era. Newsweek’s Evan Thomas explores their recent mis-steps, and urges them to be humble and open to diverging views—the opposite of Bush's "yes man" approach to picking advisers.

Reflecting on presidential lessons since Lincoln, Thomas praises the notion of a bipartisan cabinet and extols Eisenhower for picking advisers to argue clashing opinions. "If George W. Bush had done something similar before the invasion and occupation of Iraq, his would-be successors might not be so standoffish, and the Republican Party might not be in such a precarious state," Thomas writes. (More George W. Bush stories.)

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