GOP puts distance between party, Bush

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- Republicans in the run-up to the 2012 election are turning their collective back on former U.S. President George W. Bush as they angle for votes, observers say.

From Washington to state capitals to the presidential primary, Republicans are all-but ignoring nearly every accomplishment of the Bush administration -- from education's No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, to creating the USA Freedom Corps, expanding funding for faith-based programs and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Politico reported Monday.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Bush's successor in Austin, captured the current spirit of his party's potential White House occupants during a weekend party confab in New Orleans.

"It saddens me, sometimes, when my fellow Republicans duck and cover in the face of pressure from the left," Perry said Saturday.

During last week's presidential debate in New Hampshire, the Republican field shied away from the Bush administration's activist foreign policy, condemning the Obama administration's intervention in Libya and calling for an end to the war in Afghanistan.

"I think what you're seeing is the Republican Party going back to its conservative roots and, yes, going back to its core principles and I think that's a good thing," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told Politico. "I would argue that we did lose our way for a while."

Bush administration veterans point to several things that reorganized the GOP's priorities, specifically the weak economy, the Obama presidency and Tea Party movement.

"I mean, it's the economy, stupid. We had the luxury, if you will, in the immediate aftermath of the election and before [the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States], to focus on those kinds of things. The economy was OK," former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said. "It wasn't the terrible economic time it is now."