I think you are right . Bush does not have a clue about how to use the bully pulpit ....
I was glad about that when he was trying to shove shamnesty down our throats last year. It's better that Bush gets the blame, rather than the conservative Republicans.
Perhaps there will be a "throw the bums out" movement in the election that will benefit the GOP, since most of Congress is Democrat. Also, if Barry looks like he's going to win this thing, I would expect a lot of people in the red states (or the red part of blue states) to be very fearful, and want to have a Republican congresscritter from their district to keep reparations to an absolute minimum.