In 2012, Democrats accused republicans of putting up nothing but extremists as potential presidential candidates. Everyone was "like Bush on steroids." This helped an actual extremist, Barack Obama, win two elections.
Bush was actually quite liberal for a Republican. Stimulus spending is a good example of this. Republicans generally believe in businesses running themselves (capitalism) and responsible government spending. By comparison, most Republicans are further to the right.
I'm not saying this to defend Bush. He made some huge mistakes. No child left behind strengthened the schools' biggest flaws such as the inability to address highly variable needs. He exaggerated the terror threat and mishandled the following wars. He pushed laws that allowed government to unjustly spy on citizens. His over-reaction to terror included a shift in resources away from higher risk natural disasters (think FEMA and hurricane Katrina). He piled on debt.
Democrats were justified in hating Bush. The problem with this is that they viewed their hatred of the man as proof that he was further from their views. They insisted that he was far right.
Since Bush, a lot of people evaluate Republicans based on how they stand in comparison. In order to be classified as moderates, politicians now have to be well to the left of Bush. Bush was fairly liberal, so most Republicans are well to the right of him. This includes Republicans that would have been considered moderates in the past.
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