Counting up the mentions of G.W. Bush's name at the conventions

ST. PAUL -- Our creative colleague Johanna Neuman over at the Countdown to Crawford blog, chronicling the closing days of the George W. Bush administration, has been counting the mentions of the president's name each night during both parties' national conventions.

Perhaps counterintuitively, the Democrats talked a good deal more about the Republican president from Texas than has the president's own party. And not in a nice way. The reason?

The president has a low approval rating so Democrats want to associate their opposition with him and Republicans would really rather not talk about him.

Neuman's complete report is available here. Here's part of it:

We don't know if Bush watched the Republican National Convention Wednesday night -- probably not if a Texas Rangers game was on. If so, he might have been surprised to hear his name mentioned.

As Countdown to Crawford has been noting over the last two weeks, Democrats made frequent use of the president's name from Denver. Tuesday, the first night of the Republican National Convention, the only mentions of the president's name -- five -- came from his wife, First Lady Laura Bush.

So we might have expected a no-Bush night on Wednesday. And most of the top speakers -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee -- stayed away from any talk of the president, whose popularity ratings hover around 30%.

You might never guess who did mention the Texan's name. You'll have to go over to Countdown to find out.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo credit: Associated Press