This is really something, if only for the description of the 88-year old 41st President. Poor guy. Apparently the only person in the family who trusts Rove is George. Really something to read.
Didn't read yet as I'm about to hit the hay but I find it almost incomprehensible that people would be willing to allow one family to have such an outsized share of the presidency. The fact that two father-son pairs have been president ought to be a curiosity never again to be repeated.
Excellent article thanks. Given that this was written before Romeny lost, it certainly seems like Jeb is reading the writing on the wall and thinking about a run as a moderate savior of the party. The piece reads like a trial balloon, re-introducing Jeb and letting folks know he is still out there. Jeb has to be considered a contender, but honestly I think Christie has managed to get there ("there" being a non-deranged and wing-nut place) through the providence of working with the President on a natural disaster. I think the 2016 GOP is going to look a lot better and more sane than the clown parade of this cycle.
But Jeb will have to decide in the next year. If he isn't clearly out, he'll discourage others from doing the early work (getting the early big money interested). He'll also have to work hard to get known on the national stage, I don't think he's known for anything except being a Bush outside of Florida. Hilary Clinton will also have to signal her intentions clearly within a year (and if she isn't clearly out, everyone has to assume she's in). I kind of think she might not run. She's worked her ass off at State and she isn't getting any younger, she'll be 69 in 2016. When I heard she was done at State after this term, I assumed she was on the book -> professor -> $peaker glide path.
I don't think its a big surprise that Bush41 has always liked Jeb better. Relatively speaking, they are more closely matched in terms of being moderate conservatives, as opposed to what Bush43 turned out to be. Though the more time that goes on the more convinced I am that Bush43 was an easily manipulated man and that the many failures of his presidency are mostly to blame on Rove and the Neocons. That said, there is something about the whole thing that makes me doubt Jeb will ever be a successful candidate on the national stage. The whole Bush family approach makes them instantly seperate from the average person. Many of the same issues - the ties to big corporations, etc., that Romney faced would be faced by Jeb Bush. About the only thing he would bring to the table would be the potential to attract latino voters. But as that is probably the only way a mainstream Republican party can survive, its still valuable. Whether Jeb Bush is the guy to do that remains to be seen.
I'd like to believe that. Bush is a very likeable guy and while it doesn't excuse his presidency id like to think that he was just easily manipulated rather than evil/stupid.
He seemed almost childlike in a lot of ways. I swear to God half the reason he invaded Iraq was as some sort of combined misguided gesture towards his father ("This is the guy who tried to kill my dad") and attempt to exorcise the demons of his father's lifelong disapproval. I think the people backing him saw him as a pliable and popular puppet, until he finally turned on them very late in the game. The article about Jeb is really good. As I sit here today I really doubt a Jeb Bush presidential run would go much of anywhere, but I think that kind of candidate is exactly what the party needs. Republicans have a lot to offer (at least, as far as I'm concerned) if they would just jettison the crazy wing of their party and stop being so intransigent; if they would become a party of small-government (INCLUDING SOCIALLY, YOU WEIRD WINDOW-PEEPING BIGOTS), intellectualism (meaning YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT THERE IS SCIENCE YOU DUMBFUCKS) and open markets (INCLUDING LETTING IMMIGRANTS COME HERE AND WORK). I'm a big-huge libertarian who has always thought of himself as leaning Republican, but I haven't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since HW. The people they've run since then have been just an absurd parade of rodeo clowns, and the GOP has gotten so bad since Obama's first election that the entire brand is toxic. When I hear that a political figure is Republican, it's a huge strike against them in my book nowadays. You are either crazy, or allowing crazy to happen in your name.
I remember reading something a while back that characterized Jeb as being a lot like his father in temperment. Moderate, looking to work with people, even-tempered, genuinely nice. While W was like his mother. Mean, vindictive and prone to bouts of viciousness. The something was an Al Franken book so at the time I took it with a bit of salt, though he was quoting people who knew both of the brothers, but since then I've read plenty of other things about both Jeb and his family that have lead me to believe that Franken's assessment wasn't off.
If you accept science and don't care what people do in their bedroom, though, that pretty much makes you an American left-winger. That's the deal the right made with the religious wackos back in the Reagan era, and now the bill's due.
Yeah, when the hell did the Republicans even make the slightest overture toward being the party of intellectuals? For as long as I've been kicking around they've been using the word as an insult.
Bush Lite probably would have been a wholly different politician if he hadn't ended up in Texas. The crazy is in the water there.
My grandparents were Rockerfeller Republicans, although if they were still alive today, they would more likely be Democrats.
Yeah I guess I more meant when recently. I think it's fair to say that even the seventies is a pretty late date for Rockerfeller Republicanism as a rule rather than an exception; the fight over that started with Goldwater and basically ended with Nixon, any holdouts after that being grandfathered in but not really directing the party at all.
It sounds like Jeb has spouse issues that would make it more challenging to field him as a candidate, despite the fact that he'd probably make a better candidate than most because he's not only (supposedly) moderate and open to bipartisanship, but fluent in Spanish and married to a Latino. It's interesting and pretty sad that the whole reason he moved to Florida was because his wife regularly encountered racism in Texas and pretty much gave Jeb an ultimatum.
As I said in another thread, his last name is Bush and his most trusted adviser is a ghost. He's not going to be President any time soon.
You say this while quoting my post, but I'm not sure how it's a response. I didn't say "he's going to be President sometime soon." For the GOP, he could represent a certain kind of return-to-sanity candidate, but obviously whether he even ends up in the running is subject to dozens of decisions by many people. Interesting article for its look behind the scenes in Bushworld, definitely.
Interesting reading, but I sure don't feel bad for Jeb or any memeber of their rich family, no matter how despised they may or not become in history.
