Kodak moment: McCain's 'Straight Talk Express' meets 'Bush Legacy Bus' in Nashville

02:43 PM PT, Sep 16 2008

They've both been on the road for a long time.

Republican John McCain's campaign bus has been going since his last run for the presidency in 2000, dubbed the 'Straight Talk Express' for the Arizona senator's tendency to tell it like it is.

And the 'Bush Legacy Bus,' as noted in Countdown to Crawford last month, is in the process of touring the country to remind the public, in an election year, of the particulars of the Bush presidency. Supported by labor and veterans groups, the bus has been on the road since June with interactive exhibits on some of the landmark issues of the Bush years, including global warming, the Iraq war, civil liberties and the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

So maybe it wasn't a surprise that the two buses met up today at a maintenance shop in Nashville. Whatever brought them together, Jeremy Funk, communication director for the Legacy Bus, liked the metaphor:

There’s some symbolism to be found in this random, face-to-face meeting of the McCain and Bush Legacy tour buses. There is nowhere for Senator McCain to run or hide from his record of rubberstamping Bush’s failed policies 90% of the time, from endless war in Iraq to tax breaks for corporations that outsource American jobs. The ‘Straight Talk Express’ got an up-close glimpse of how four more years of the same failed Bush policies it promises would further ruin the economy, weaken our national security, threaten our Social Security, and sacrifice so many priorities here at home.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Julie Blust / Americans United for Change