McClellan: Negativity in politics must end

WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- Negativity in U.S. politics crystallized during George Herbert Walker Bush's campaign against Michael Dukakis, ex-presidential spokesman Scott McClellan says.

The current president's father is a "decent individual" but he and his advisers "knew that the only way that they could win was bring down his opponent and go fully negative," McClellan said on MSNBC's "Countdown."

McClellan, President George W. Bush's former White House press secretary, discussed his memoirs, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," with "Countdown" host Keith Obermann, responding to questions about his take on the Bush presidency. McClellan, 40, was White House spokesman from July 2003 to April 2006.

"(That) legacy (of negativity) continues to this day," McClellan said Thursday. "And Senator (John) McCain says that he's going to speak out against that and not let that happen."

One way to correct the partisan negativity would be for the incoming president to select a politically diverse cabinet, he said.

"(They) really ought to reach out, if they want to change the way things work in Washington," McClellan said., "and the cabinet would be a good place to do that to show that they are going to govern to the center and govern in a bipartisan way."

McClellan said he hasn't decided who he'd support in the November election.

"I want to take my time and hear what the candidates have to say," he said.