The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

August 28, 2008

Bush ‘a total failure,’ DNC member says

Mannix Porterfield

Take any hot-button issue — from the battlefields of the Middle East to the struggles at the gas pumps and the grocery stores — and President Bush has proved to be a complete failure.

That is the assessment of Marie Prezioso, national Democratic committee member and a delegate to the party’s convention this week in Denver.

“The war has been a failure,” said Prezioso, a sister of state Senate Health and Human Resources Chairman Roman Prezioso, D-Marion.

“I think the economy has not gone the way it should be going. I can’t really think of any issue that he has done right.”

No one is mentioning the misery index — a household term back when Jimmy Carter occupied the White House — but Democrats gearing up for the final campaign push are adding up the negatives against Bush and the Republicans.

When all the numbers are in, Prezioso and her fellow Democrats say, it suggests West Virginia is about to switch from red to blue Nov. 4.

“I think it will, I really do,” she said.

“The Bush administration has been a failure. The economy has gotten worse and it’s affecting a lot of us when we go to get groceries or buy gas. I think that combination is certainly different than it was four years ago.”

Economic matters and health care are two items of supreme importance to West Virginians, she said.

Can the Republicans hold on to Democrats with moral and social issues as they succeeded in doing in the past two presidential election years when Bush won West Virginia?

Prezioso sees such matters as complex in which voters have degrees of feelings about, and the Democrats realize and appreciate the sentiments on issues that can become emotional.

But to Prezioso, moral isn’t limited to the typical issues such as abortion.

“To me, it’s immoral not to have health care,” she said.

“It’s not moral to not take care of the education needs of the people. It’s not moral not to help people who are less fortunate. To me, those are the moral issues. I think people realize that and the Democratic Party is right on those issues. I think times have changed and people look at things differently. And I think that’s all to the favor of the Democratic Party.”

Prezioso arrived as an ardent follower of Sen. Hillary Clinton, convinced she would have proved to be “a great president,” but she has no difficulty switching her allegiance to Barack Obama.

“In fact, he was one of my top choices before I decided to go with Hillary,” she said.

Aside from the strain of attending one committee function after another, Prezioso has managed to enjoy the festivities as well.

“It’s been a lot of fun to see all of my former Young Democrats when I was national president, seeing how people have changed over the last 25 years,” she said.

“That has been a lot of fun.”

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