Is George W. Bush still hurting the Republican Party

[Indy Texas]

Let's compare. At the 2016 national conventions...

The Democrats will have:
1. Barack Obama, an outgoing president who is very popular with his own party.
2. Bill Clinton, a former president who is very popular with his party and with a number of non-Democrats.
3. Jimmy Carter, a former president who was rather mediocre but is somewhat well-regarded as a humanitarian/elder statesman figure.

The Republicans will have:
1. George W. Bush, a former president who is unpopular with much of his party and with most non-Republicans, to the point that he was not welcome at the 2008 and 2012 conventions and probably won't attend the 2016 convention either.
2. George H. W. Bush, a former president whose ideology is so divorced from the modern GOP that it's hard to see him feeling welcome to play an active role in the party without some sort of time machine. And even if he wanted to, he's too feeble and unhealthy at this point to be involved.

For people who don't like the Tea Party, the Establishment Republican Party is usually associated with George W. Bush. And independent voters don't like him either, albeit for a different set of reasons.

I definitely think the GOP is going to need a Kennedy-esque figure to serve as the foundation for rebuilding their brand in the national consciousness.

[Indy Texas]

McCain probably lost in 2008 because Obama was a fresh breathe of change away from the Bush administration.

Is Bush still to blame for the Republican party's troubles? Or is it the wackiness of the tea party?

Both.

More so the latter than the former at this point.

Most definitely.  I feel as if the Democrats will start talking about GWB a lot more in order to rev-up minority/Millennial turnout in 2016, especially if Jeb is the nominee.

George W. Bush made me leave the GOP. The Tea Party ensured that I would never come back.

[Indy Texas]

Honestly, I think that he's much less of a liability as he was in 2008, and that Barack Obama will be a liability forever, to some degree. His presidency is the reason we lost all the Blue Dogs in the South, as the election of a Black president was the final straw with Southern voters.

If that was the "final straw" for them, then you shouldn't want them back.