Obama's strategy vs. Sarah Palin in 2012? Run against Bush.

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Actually, he'll run against Bush no matter who the Republicans nominate in Tampa. That's according to "Beltway" Bob Gibbs, anyway who touched on the subject at Monday's Obama worship service for the White House press corpse (typo intentional):

Both the congressional campaign this year and the 2012 presidential race will feature talk "about the direction that this country is going to go," Gibbs said.

"You're going to get an opportunity to think about whether we're going to go back to what we came from or that we're going to go forward," Gibbs said. "And that's a debate I think the President and many here are anxious to have."

Gibbs spoke after declining to comment specifically on Palin's new "Mama Grizzlies" ad, which, along with the $1 million-plus raised by her political action committee, has rekindled talked of a Palin-for-President campaign.

Palin and other Republican possibilities -- including Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, and Mike Huckabee -- are busy stumping for their party's candidates in the fall congressional and gubernatorial campaigns. So is Obama, who is lining up a string of appearances leading into the Nov. 2 election.

Letr us get this straight. Whenever high unemployment, the mountain of U.S. debt, the collapse of the housing market, dwindling factory orders, the Gulf Oil Disaster, Democrats stuck on spending, a federal government completely out of touch with its citizens and in the fast lane to socialism, Obama's argument is going to be that it's all Bush's fault?

Somehow we don't think the voters will go for it. They've still got buyers' remorse over the 2006 and 2008 elections. Hopefully, the Dems will stick with the strategy until at least November 2, 2012 even after it fails in this year's midterms. Learning from history isn't the left's strong suit.

- JP