The American Spectator

Bob Keiser br> Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania /p> p> Sorry guys. I don’t care how good Jeb Bush is, I’m not voting for another Bush. The presidency isn’t anybody’s family business. And one Clinton was one too many. I’ll sit it out if those are my choices. br> — William L. Roughton, Jr. br> Fairfax Station, Virginia /p>

Although I believe Quin Hillyer’s “Jeb in 2008?” column is well written, I don’t believe the scenario he envisions is likely to occur at all.

If no clear winner emerges after the large number of contests early next February, it is hard for me to imagine presidential candidates taking hard-earned delegates they have won in primaries and caucuses after over a year of hard work and then simply handing them over to a “white knight” in the spring of 2008 — especially when the possibility of a contested convention will then exist where they themselves could conceivably emerge as the “consensus” candidate like others have during previously contested conventions in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

If any “white knight” were to appear, it would be in the convention in my view rather than in the late stages of the primary season — and it would not be Jeb Bush even under this scenario.

On Inauguration Day 2009 it will be exactly 20 years since someone not named Bush or Clinton occupied the White House, and I believe this fact will preclude Jeb Bush — although his record is far more impressive than nearly all of the other candidates - from ever being seriously considered for president in 2008. (It is for this same reason that I believe Hillary Clinton will not succeed in her presidential bid.)

p>The smartest move of this presidential cycle thus far in my opinion was Jeb Bush announcing almost immediately after his brother’s re-election in November 2004 that he would not be a candidate in 2008 — almost assuredly due to the realization of the fatigue the Bush/Clinton names would engender in the voting public by that time. br> — Todd Gentry