Republicans want Romney to avoid being taken for Bush III. But not really

Move away, Mr. President. But not too far.
(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
For quite a while now, some Republicans have been urging Mitt Romney to separate himself from the policies of George Bush. In May, for example, Jonah Goldberg went on at great length in his Memo to Mitt: Run Against Bush. Now others are speaking up:

Freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) who rode the wave of anti-incumbency fervor into the House in 2010, said Romney should firmly separate himself from Bush's economic policies.

'Many of us, myself included, got into politics because we were appalled at the Bush record on spending,' Mulvaney said in an interview with The Hill.

Other Republicans think Romney should speak against unpopular programs like No Child Left Behind and against the kinds of economic stimuli that Bush initiated.

But you don't hear any of them telling the candidate to push the Bush economic advisers he's brought aboard Team Romney out the airlock. Because there are quite a few Bush policies Goldberg and others think are just hunky-dory.

Take, for instance, R. Glenn Hubbard, one of those pointy-headed intellectuals who got his doctorate from'OMG'Harvard. He was chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers from 2001 to 2003. His claim to fame? Having been the architect of the Bush tax cuts that pumped billions into the hands of the already wealthy and helped turn a Clinton-era budget surplus into gigantic, back-to-back deficits.

Then there is Greg Mankiw, another Harvard grad. He was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005. As Andrew Leonard points out, Mankiw gave voice during the 2004 campaign to a subject that is being echoed in 2012, saying that free trade and outsourcing of jobs 'was probably a plus for the American economy in the long run.' And he's making proposals now that are likely to make the next financial crisis as bad as the most recent one.

So where are the Republican calls for Romney to put some space between his campaign and these Bush holdovers? Apparently in the same place as are the calls to jettison ultra-hawk John Bolton and the score or so neoconservatives on the candidate's foreign policy team.