Posted on 05/02/2014 8:55:07 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Can we really call it “news” if it’s something that everyone already knows?
Imagine if all the tea-party energy of the past five years ends up in another Bush coronation in 2016. I don’t know if the party would fracture. But it should.
In private conversations that are now seeping into public view, some of them are signaling to Mr. Christie’s camp that, should Mr. Bush enter the race, their first loyalty would be to him, not to Mr. Christie, according to interviews with more than two dozen of them…
The family name, [Barry Wynn] said, remains a powerful draw. “They love the Bush family,” Mr. Wynn said. “They love the whole package, and they feel Jeb is just a part of the package.”…
At risk for Mr. Christie is not just the electoral affections of Bush loyalists, but also the backing of a still-potent national network of wealthy Republican donors and bundlers who propelled three Bushes to high office and who provided Mitt Romney with an overwhelming fund-raising advantage in 2012…
“I have great affection for Christie,” said Mel Sembler, a Florida real estate developer and Bush donor who is among the top Republican fund-raisers. “He’s done an amazing job as a Republican governor in a Democratic state. But I have great loyalty to that family because they brought me into the political arena, and I’ll be supporting Jeb Bush if he decides to run.”
I’m half-convinced they’d re-nominate Dubya if we somehow got the 22nd Amendment repealed.
Here’s the excruciating question for Christie and his supporters: If Jeb jumps in, do you jump out? More specifically, do you try to make a deal with Jeb to guarantee your future in his administration? Given the money and influence of Bushworld, defeating Bush for the centrist vote would be hard enough even for a Chris Christie at the height of his powers. For a Christie weakened by Bridgegate, it seems impossible. Not only would he have to win, he’d have to be respectful of Jeb in campaigning so as not to alienate Bush’s network of supporters in case he pulled the upset. That’d be hard to do given that Christie’s message would necessarily be some variation of “no more Bushes.” On the other hand, Christie’s term-limited as governor of New Jersey. He’ll be out of office by 2018, which is close enough to 2020 that he could probably try running that year if he doesn’t run this time — but of course, that’s contingent upon there being a Democratic president in 2020. Obviously, Christie wouldn’t primary President Jeb. If he passes on 2016, he’s taking a real risk that he’ll be out of politics in four years with no obvious path to any higher office before him. Maybe he could challenge Bob Menendez for Senate, but what are the odds of him defeating a Democratic incumbent at this point?
There’s a third possibility. Instead of running and losing to Jeb or sitting out the race and biding his time until there’s an opening again, what if he promised Jeb his enthusiastic support on the trail in exchange for a spot in his cabinet — maybe Attorney General, maybe VP, maybe something else. Bush would be grateful since that would all but clear the centrist field for him, and Christie would make a fine attack dog against Rand Paul and/or Ted Cruz on the stump. The vice presidency is probably out of the question since Jeb will feel pressure to unite the party with a more conservative pick, but AG is possible. And all of this would give Christie a way to stay in the political game, first as a top-flight surrogate for the eventual nominee and later as a cabinet officer with enough national experience to possibly run for president himself someday. Frankly, at this point, I’d be surprised if Christie didn’t pass once Jeb got in. Then Rubio will pass too, and we’ll be down to a de facto Final Four: Bush, Walker, Paul, and (maybe) Ted Cruz. Or would Walker pass too for fear of alienating the establishment by challenging King Jeb?
Exit question: If we do end up with that Final Four, does Jindal have a chance?
I heard the same from a rich Christie supporter on Cavuto. He went even further to say he wouldn’t support anyone else who won the nomination.
Will U. S. citizens that consider the sanctity and security of the ballot as an expression of a right owned solely by duly qualified citizens support Jeb Bush? Or should they bother voting at all?
either one at the top will lead to an ass kicking they have never seen..
many many of us who held our nose and voted “for the lesser of two evils” are done with that noise..
Jeb, Christie, and their doners can go to hell!
I won’t vote for either one no matter how much money they get and spend!
Christy was a major factor in Obama’s reelection. Why would any Republican vote for him? if the Republicans nominate him, I will be persuaded they’re all a bunch of lunatics.
Well, they are: they've already voted Cornball and George P. in TX, and that's our most conservative state.
They must get a huge monetary return on their donations. It certainly isn't for the good of the country.
I would vote Christie just ahead of Hillary. And Bush just barely ahead of Christy. They are not even in the running for conservatives. The R’s have to run a tough candidate, not a petunia.
I think Jeb Bush would produce a colossal, near Mondale-grade humiliating electoral loss against Hillary and flag the singular, unmistakable death by implosion of the Republican party. I think plenty of Republicans would vote for Hillary under those conditions on the theory that if this is what the GOP can come up with, the country is utterly lost and we might as well get the bleeding over with ASAP and stop screwing around with halfway measures.
In business terms: a turnaround guy.
This has been a fait accompli since GWB left office.
There was a pronounced shortage of effective challengers in those two races.
Otherwise, we did just fine.
Christy was a major factor in Obama’s reelection. Why would any Republican vote for him? if the Republicans nominate him, I will be persuaded they’re all a bunch of lunatics.
Conservativism doesn’t rank high with some Republicans. They’ll vote for DeDe Scozzefeva cause she says she’s a Republican doesn’t matter to them she’s a lefty
Well, there goes the diet.
“we’ll be down to a de facto Final Four: Bush, Walker, Paul, and (maybe) Ted Cruz.”
The final four will be Bush, Romney, Ryan and Santorum.
Then I’ll vote Tea party.
Lol.
What a bunch of pointless, stupid losers.
“Christy was a major factor in Obama’s reelection.”
Romney was the major factor in Obama’s reelection. The Republican candidate in 2012 should have easily won on two issues - Obamacare and the abysmal economy. Romney, as the architect of the trial run of Obamacare in Massachusetts, could not condemn Obamacare. With respect to the economy, Romney’s only message was “I can do better because I was a great executive”. The message should have been, “We are in the worst economy since the Great Depression and here is my plan to fix the mess we are in.”
James Carville wrote the playbook for running a presidential campaign about the economy in 1992 when Bill Clinton pounded George H.W. Bush on an economy that was in recovery. All Romney had to do was take the gloves off and pound away on the issue. It was Romney that chose to play the nice guy in the campaign while he was being defined by the opposition as an elitist out of touch millionaire. As Leo Durocher was fond of saying, “Nice guys finish last.” Particularly when you are nice to a Chicago thug.
It was Romney who made the decision to run a soft campaign while he was being attacked from all sides. It was Romney who made the decision to distance himself from the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, and conservatives. It was Romney who made the decision to base his ground game on election day on an untested computer system which failed miserably. Romney may or may not have been a great strategist and CEO at Bain. As CEO of a presidential campaign he was a miserable failure and the blame rests with his poor decisions, lack of vision, and poor leadership, not with the behavior of others.
While Christie’s behavior was boorish during the last weeks of the 2012 campaign, and certainly did not help Romney, Romney had already lost the the election by the time Christie was publicly sucking up to Obama. If Romney had done what he needed to do to win, and beaten the Democrats to a pulp on the economy, Christie would not have allowed himself to have been photographed within 100 miles of Obama.
P.S. I’m not an apologist for Christie. In my book he is as bad as Romney, McCain, and Jeb Bush. They are all power hungry, elitist, self centered, political hacks who are totally out of touch with main stream Americans. The fact Christie dared to stray from his party’s plantation during the last weeks of the campaign just demonstrates how weak Romney was as a candidate. If Christie didn’t fear any repercussions from crossing Romney, certainly Obama and the Democrats had no fear of Romney.
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