It might not be stretching the truth to suggest that the Democrats won the White House for this reason: the current Republican president had a communication strategy that was the perfect one for 1999 and 2000, but decidedly faulty for most of the next eight years. This made a lot of people really mad. When Bush campaigned and was first elected, his communication strategy was terrific: disciplined, focused, unswerving, on-message, reliable, solid, constant, determined, and maybe even masculine. For the next two terms, two towers, and two wars, however, that same strategy made him look stubborn, difficult, evasive, obfuscating, condescending, and incompetent. Obama had a different rhetorical approach, and thus he looked and sounded thoughtful, studious, emotional, intellectual, optimistic, and other nice and happy things. Here’s a brief analysis of what his communication style should be now, specifically regarding TV:

Obama’s predecessors took different approaches. Bill Clinton and his team wanted the president’s positions conveyed in almost every news story. They turned the White House into a 24-hour newsroom and believed that a president’s influence increases when he looks thoroughly involved. An administration must try to make news to keep the power of the bully pulpit alive. If it doesn’t, it cedes ground to political opponents, members of Congress, and, most troubling of all, pundits.

George Bush took the opposite approach. He embraced a diminished public posture. He tried to stick to the message of the day, repeating familiar arguments and viewing sideline debates or events in the news as distractions. The administration consciously did not try to “play” in every story.

Clinton’s approach could seem scattershot, and Bush’s could seem out of touch. “The Clintons were like day traders,” says former Bush counselor Dan Bartlett. “We were more like long-term investors. Neither worked perfectly. In our case it showed discipline, but we were sometimes too rigid and missed opportunities to get the president’s message across because it wasn’t blocked out on the calendar.”

Which route will Obama choose?

Again, I would argue that this is one of the major reasons and catalysts for the blob of general Bush hatred in the world.