Does The Thought Of Another Bush Presidency Make You Want To Puke? Many Conservatives Agree

But he's not a Mormon

Jeb Bush is on the short list of which GOP presidential hopefuls the party's moneyed Establishment is ready to bankroll in 2016. And if Wall Street-friendly Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, Republicans can't take these people for granted. They like Bush; he's a known quantity and tends to be more like his father (a mainstream conservative) than his brother (an easily manipulated moron). They want someone like Bush, Ryan or Christie or a boring old slice of ratty whitebread like Portman or Thune and they don't want some kind of crazed Tea Party sociopath like Santorum, DeMint, Rand Paul, Rubio, Rick Perry or Bachmann. Fox Nation may have a problem with Hillary. Republican elites don't, not existentially at least.

But the far right-- the Fox Nation types with 3-digit IQs-- are horrified at the thought of another Mitt Romney... like Jeb Bush. They're angry that Jeb Bush didn't endorse insurgent Republican Marco Rubio against the party's recruited candidate, Charlie Crist, fast enough. I don't know if you'll remember, but the NRSC was bragging what a score they had with Crist and Cornyn was crowing and the whole Republican Establishment was jumping up and down. So now they're mad that it took Bush too long to buck the party?

Oh, he finally came around. After then-Governor Crist endorsed the Obama stimulus, this was a bridge too far even for former Governor Bush.

But when others were out there at the barricades for an unknown conservative Marco Rubio at the very beginning? When Mark Levin was, typically, out there first to give the conservative underdog some much needed attention with appearances on his show? Where was Jeb?

Say again: Jeb was neutral.

Why does this seemingly small detail amount to anything?

Over the Thanksgiving holidays, the New York Times ran this story on its front page, headlined as follows:

Jeb Bush in 2016? Not Too Early for Chatter

The paper might as well have had another headline:

Jeb Bush in 2016? Here Comes the Next Mitt Romney

The Times went on at length about the love for all-things Bush coming from the very same kind of people who were once upon a time insisting that only Mitt Romney could win the day for the GOP. The paper included favorable reference to Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education, about which more in a moment.

The Jeb-in-2016 sentiment was expressed this way:

Still, calls for Jeb Bush to enter the arena in a bigger way represent vindication of a sort. His family's longstanding advocacy for a more broad-based and "compassionate" Republican Party was largely ignored and eventually repudiated by the populist, small-government conservatives who held sway over the party after Mr. Obama's election. 

The article then gets this gem of a quote from Ana Navarro, the inevitable "Republican strategist": 

"This election result has made Jeb Bush's voice that much wiser and that much more needed for the Republican Party: What he's been warning about all along proved to be true."

Ms. Navarro, it should be noted, was the "McCain National Hispanic Co-Chair" in 2008 and did the same for liberal Establishment Republican Jon Huntsman in 2012. No word from her as to how the moderate McCain or Huntsman presidencies have worked out.

The GOP has been here before. And before and before and before. Only Jeb Bush… or Mitt Romney… John McCain… George W. Bush…Bob Dole… George H.W. Bush… Gerald Ford… Tom Dewey… pick one…. can win the day.

And what happens when these Republican Establishment favorites are picked? They lose outright… or win what should be walkaways by the skin of their teeth. In the case of George H.W. Bush, who won by tying himself tightly to Reagan's coattails in 1988, a re-election was lost with an appalling 37% of the vote. And when GOP Establishment candidates do lose? They immediately start mumbling into their Chablis about how something has to be done with those damnable conservatives.

And when that rare win comes along? It quickly becomes plain that these people are not about a Reagan Revolution. They are about managing the bureaucracy that is already there… when not adding to it.

A case in point is Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education... The curious incident at Jeb Bush's education foundation? There is not a single word about abolishing the federal Department of Education. And in not even mentioning this, Bush adds to the perception that yet another Bush presidency would be in some fashion just like the other two. Either taxes would be raised to accommodate liberals (Bush 41) or the government would be expanded to placate liberals (Bush 43).

Which is to say, Jeb Bush-- like Mitt Romney or others in the long dismal losing line of GOP moderates addicted to such bogus concepts as "broadening the base" and "the Big Tent"-- would seek the presidency to timidly tinker at the edges when not making the problem worse. All the while patronizing the minority-of-the-moment instead of approaching them as equals who need real economic growth just like everybody else in America regardless of color.

The impression of Jeb Bush as the Next Mitt Romney comes clearer with his every entry into the national political dialogue.

On taxes?

Bush would refuse to sign on to Grover Norquist's Reaganite pledge that he won't raise taxes. 

"No, I-- okay, so I ran for office three times. The pledge was presented to me three times. I never signed the pledge. I cut taxes every year I was governor. I don't believe you outsource your principles and convictions to people. I respect Grover's political involvement. He has every right to do it, but I never signed any pledge."

So raising taxes is an option for Bush. And he was once neutral between Crist and Rubio... Just like his father on raising taxes, just like his brother on increasing the size of government, Jeb Bush is tone deaf to conservative principle.

To wit, the obvious: Jeb Bush is the Next Mitt Romney.

The latest moderate favorite of the GOP Establishment.

The guy whose backers think being married to a Mexican is a policy statement in the same way Romney supporters thought being a successful businessman was a policy statement.

The guy who has all the same people who swore up and down on the record that Romney's so-called "moderation" was THE ANSWER… and post-election have denied Mitt not three times but a thousand times.

Jeb Bush… after multiples of years of experience between family and personally held political office… is in fact blind as a bat to conservative principle. When liberal push comes to conservative pull… Jeb Bush is either pleading neutrality between Rubio and Crist or waving the white flag on taxes or falling dead silent on the existence of the Department of Education.

In the vernacular: Jeb Bush doesn't get it.

The author, Jeffrey Lord-- best known for his expressed disdain for Ron Paul and his followers and for coming up with failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork for Reagan-- then goes on to explain why the GOP needs Rubio, "a Latino version of Ronald Reagan," not Bush, who, he claims is the Republican Establishment." I wonder if Rubio will be too busy avoiding getting immersed in the David Rivera scandals to run for president.