Luke Brinker: Pajama Boy all growed-up
Posted on 09/23/2014 4:34:11 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Former Florida governor's likely candidacy reveals how desperate GOP establishment has become to avoid Rand Paul.
A dozen years after he ran his last political campaign, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is gearing up for a 2016 presidential bid – a campaign that would open up a new front in the Republican Party’s ongoing civil war.
Mike Allen reports in today’s Politico Playbook that according to Bush’s friends, he’s “leaning more yes than no” on launching a run. He’s campaigning for Republican candidates in Senate battlegrounds like North Carolina and Kansas, and Allen reports, “has headlined several fundraisers where the candidate COMES TO FLORIDA, where Jeb knows everyone.” The fundraisers, Allen writes, give us REASON TO THINK that Jeb will aim for a Bush restoration: “That means that the proceeds are all NEW MONEY for the guest, and the candidate gets to meet new supporters and build his or her own network.”
Bush’s constituency is largely the same one that helped Mitt Romney win the GOP nod in 2012 – rich conservative mega-donors seeking a candidate who will reliably promote corporate interests, without, say, making cringe-worthy assertions of a link between the HPV vaccine and mental challenges. As with Romney, Bush’s positions hardly differ from those of Michele Bachmann – he’s an opponent of LGBT equality, reproductive rights and Obamacare, and despite irking many conservatives by supporting immigration reform, he’s even backtracked on that issue to ingratiate himself to the GOP’s xenophobic base. There is, of course, the troubling matter of Bush’s support for education standards.
But while there are few discernible policy differences between the GOP’s “establishment” and Tea Party factions, that’s not to say a GOP civil war isn’t still underway. It’s a war that’s less about ideology than it is about image and priorities. Whereas Mike Huckabee will readily launch bigoted tirades against gay people, Bush will quietly oppose equal rights for LGBT citizens – and, if asked to comment on marriage equality, for instance, will say it’s all a distraction from the economy. The GOP’s backers on Wall Street may not share such retrograde views, but they’ve calculated that candidates like Bush stand a far better chance of winning the White House – and thereby advancing the corporate agenda – than the Huckabees and Cruzes of the party.
But are they right? For all the GOP elite’s eagerness to see another Bush presidency, there’s scant evidence that American voters are ready to see any such thing. In head-to-head match-ups against likely Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bush performs worse than Tea Party favorites like Huckabee and Rand Paul (a candidate whose “independent” streak gives many donors discomfort), and barely outperforms Ted Cruz.
Evidence-based or no, however, the clamoring for a great establishment savior puts the lie to the conventional wisdom that the GOP is moving beyond the bitter divisions of 2010 and 2012. The establishment’s fear of a Tea Party nominee like Paul is palpable in its willingness to support a Bush candidacy and in the chatter that the latest Bridgegate news – Chris Christie is only an incompetent manager, not a scheming Don Corleone! – could mean that Christie is “poised” to return to the top of the GOP field. Whether – as in 2012 – the establishment gets its candidate remains to be seen. But there’s no doubt that the GOP civil war is hardly a thing of the past.
I’m with you. Cruz or bust.
Same. Cruz or lose.
um how do we make that happen
They’d better get with it because they try to force another McCain, Romney they can forget their base.
This article’s author is stupid or a liar.
Romney CREATED both ObamaCARE/RomneyCARE and gay
marriage.
The GOP supports both, along with open borders
AND arming al Qaeda.
Don’t forget Alan West. I’d love to see the left try to justify the hatred they express toward a Hispanic and/or black ticket.
i think for strategy we unite during the primary with hitlery and the bambi crowd and attack Jeb as a clone of W. I liked W but his Goldman Sachs people just waited to screw him.
heck if I know :-) like herding cats
They’ve been pushing the Other Bush a lot longer than Rand’s been on anyone’s radar.
“I wish he had run and won rather than GW.”
Maybe if the president had to be named “Bush.” But so long as we’re playing make-believe, why not have fun and pick someone else altogether?
I’m at the point where I really don’t care what the Republican Party does anymore. To me they’re no different than the Democrats.
I’ll vote for Hillary rather than let another Bush shove their New World Order down our throat.
We wil be told the same old crap
vote RINO or “we lose”
we??
lol
He currently tops my list. Ted Cruz is number two on the list.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
If/when it comes down to Paul vs Bush, I wonder who Cruz will side with. Bushes made him Solicitor General in Tx; Paul would have to promise something better.
diogeknees—have you run out of pins to stick in your Romney doll? in case anyone here on FR doesn’t realize it, Dieogknees is glad that BO beat Romney, as he feared that we might have had a president who actually loved our country. by the way, now that your man, BO, won, did you notice we have both Obamacare and gay marriage? but at least, we’re not stuck with Romney, right? thank goodness for that!
My word...our choices from the R elite are: Christie, Bush or Rand Paul?
No way any of those men get elected to POTUS.
Bush? 360 million people and the R’s can only see one dang family?
Good lord. Almost as lame as the D’s thinking anyone wants another Clinton as POTUS.
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