Republicans Look At Jeb Bush... And Shudder In Horror

Cringe-worthy... even for Republicans

This Week, a right-wing webste, is more in tune with the ideas right-of-center writers like David Frum than with the crazy fascist and racist stuff you get from other GOP-oriented media. Yesterday, after Politico reported that GOP Establishment figures Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are both planning to run for president in 2016, they were one of many Republican outlets wringing their hands over the prospect of-- let's face it-- another Bush. Jeb confirmed everyone's worst fears on his Facebook page this morning. Romney, according to Politico, is telling people he's willing to jump in because the Republican field is so pathetic.

He has said, among other things, that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, would run into problems because of his business dealings, his work with the investment banks Lehman Brothers and Barclays, and his private equity investments.

“You saw what they did to me with Bain [Capital],” he has said, referring to the devastating attacks that his Republican rivals and President Barack Obama’s team launched against him for his time in private equity, according to three sources familiar with the line. “What do you think they’ll do to [Bush] over Barclays?”

... [A] top Republican operative who is supportive of a Jeb Bush candidacy said that he did not believe Bush would have as much trouble with his financial dealings in a campaign as Romney did.

“Jeb’s wealth and investments are nothing on the scale of Romney’s. He is not building car elevators,” this person said, offering a hint of the bitterness that could ensue if both Romney and Bush run.

Indeed, Bush, for his part, has begun conducting opposition research on himself to identify any potential issues that could arise, a standard move for potential candidates but nonetheless one that indicates his level of seriousness about the process, two people familiar with his plans said.

He has also had discussions about how he would get out of his business ventures. Indeed, one Bush supporter said the former Florida governor would be far more proactive than Romney was in responding to attacks about his business record, which Romney made central to his run.

There will be “no fetal position” from Bush, said the source, a reference to Romney’s decision to wait until he had been defined by Democrats to start hitting back and defining himself.

Neither Romney nor Bush polls particularly well against Hillary Clinton outside of the old slave-holding states. The idea, though, is that Bush will be able to save the GOP from the excesses of extremism and down-right fascism represented by the surging Ted Cruz/Hate Talk Radio wing of the party. Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote about why he thinks Jeb would not make matters any better for the Republicans in 2016.

By the time 2016 rolls around, it will have been eight years since the previous Bush presided over an economic disaster. The economy may have mostly recovered, but it is drastically more unequal. What is Bush's cheerleading going to do for that? Does anyone think the GOP needs another captain of private equity to be its leader? And as loathsome and un-American as it may seem to hold someone's family name against him, this point needs to be emphasized: the GOP and the country don't need another Bush.

Although recent years have made me appreciate the creative realism of George H.W. Bush's foreign policy, Jeb Bush seems to be taking after his moralizing and confrontational brother, rather than his more restrained, consensus-building father. A recent speech in Miami revealed that Bush accepts the "we're-rubber, you're-glue" moral calculus of the most hawkish voices. When America kills foreigners, the foreigners are to blame. But when Russia invades Ukraine, or Syria disintegrates into civil war, that's America's fault for not doing something. This is stupid and dangerous.

The George H. W. Bush style of domestic policy that both his sons inherited is one of giving liberal programs half the funding and authority liberals want, but dolloping on so much conservative-branded "accountability" that it can be sold to the right. Poppy pushed "standards-based reform." W. did No Child Left Behind. And Jeb is the leading GOP advocate for what's become of Common Core. Whatever the merits, being identified so closely with a Bill-Gates subsidized education scheme hated from the right wing to Louis C.K. will prove costly.

Nominating Jeb Bush is an implied admission that the GOP cannot put together a post-Reagan presidential coalition without this one family. It would mean advertising that the party that just put together an impressive, across-the-board electoral comeback in 2014, and that has performed unusually well in gubernatorial races several cycles running, is bereft of talent and must rely on an older brand-- one that people tired of twice. Republicans should reject these assumptions about their party, no matter how desperate eight years out of the White House has made them.

The last few years have been ones of experimentation for the party. There is the libertarian-inflected Rand Paul; there are Chris Christies and Scott Walkers who promise dramatic confrontations with public bureaucracy. There is the family-friendly wonkery of Sen. Mike Lee of Utah. If people want to try Bushism again, they should at least have the decency to demand that Marco Rubio's face be stretched over that political zombie's head.

Just by running, Jeb Bush will initiate a peculiarly intense argument about the propriety of political dynasties, which will distract from any kind of ordinary primary campaign about the direction of his party and nation. I've settled the issue in my own mind. The American republic abided two Adamses. But with the Bushes, it's time to say enough: third time's a harm.