Jeb was neutral.
Say again, neutral.
As Ronald Reagan might say, there he went again.
What was Jeb Bush neutral about?
The
choice between liberal Charlie Crist and conservative Marco
Rubio for the Republican nomination for United States Senator from
Florida.
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. A visit to the group’s website is not unlike reading the
old Sherlock Holmes tale Silver Blaze in which there is
this bit of dialogue between Holmes and a Scotland Yard detective
named Gregory:
Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you
would wish to draw my attention?”
Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in
the night-time.”
Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the
night-time.”
Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”
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.
Why?
Why, why, why?
The question goes to what might be called First Instincts. First
Conservative Instincts. And the hard fact is that like both his
president father and brother, Jeb Bush is adrift when it comes to
conservative principle. Missing in conservative action.
In uncanny if not surprising fashion, Jeb Bush to Marco Rubio
was like Mitt Romney to Romney’s own Massachusetts liberal
opponents before winning the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. He
couldn’t quite figure out where he stood on the
conservative/liberal line.
Hello?
Not unsurprisingly like George H.W. Bush to Ronald Reagan, Jeb
just didn’t recognize the liberal/conservative line or on which
side he wanted to stake his colors. So — unlike Reagan boldly
staking his claim for Goldwater in 1964 or taking on Gerald Ford in
1976 — Jeb Bush wimped. Say again: wimped. Neutrality between the
Reaganite Rubio or RINO Crist was to effectively join a
not-so-subtle campaign against conservatism. And when he had the
chance to step up for Marco Rubio — Jeb Bush flinched.
And then changed his mind. Which is to say, the issue of
conservative principle never was part of Jeb’s equation until Crist
was so egregiously running away from conservatism Bush could no
longer safely ignore it.
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.
Contrast this with, say, Marco Rubio. The very man about whom
Jeb Bush was once a professed neutral — when Rubio was risking all
to challenge the deeply liberal Crist.
Senator Rubio happens to be a Latino married to a Latina.
Wonderfully fortuitous — but not a reason to support him for
president. The reason to support Marco Rubio over Jeb Bush is that
Rubio is a conservative. The real deal. A Latino version of Ronald
Reagan. Fearless in challenging the Florida GOP Establishment when
it counted, just as Reagan was willing to take on first the
California GOP Establishment and later the national GOP
Establishment.
Mr. Bush, famously, is the Republican Establishment.
His very first instinct wasn’t to challenge Charlie Crist and what
Crist stood for — it was to stay on the sidelines. To effectively
roll over.
Of course Jeb Bush will consider raising taxes. Of course he
won’t zap the Department of Education. For a reason.
Establishment Republicans don’t rock the boat. That would be
“extreme” or “divisive.” Both labels, not coincidentally, once
applied to Ronald Reagan by his own Establishment GOP foes who were
truly appalled at Reagan’s views. “Reagan is a conservative, an
extreme conservative. All the dummies and blockheads are with him,”
Jeb’s Dad — RR’s own vice president — is reported to have once
told then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Gerald Ford insisted
Reagan could never win a national election because he was
“extreme.”
None of this means Jeb Bush isn’t a smart guy or a good guy. He
is merely the latest guy to embody the relentlessly rigid
principles of GOP “moderation.” The next guy in line to be
celebrated by the media for his oh-so-caring compassion… until
nominated. At which time, just as with Mitt Romney and John McCain
or any of the other moderates, he will be assailed as an immoral if
not racist tool of evil corporations whose life, once examined with
the skill of the liberal political proctologists, will be
discovered to be a life-long testament to a sordid list of
fill-in-the-blank horrors.
One can only shake one’s head at enduring the umpteenth round of
this business.
America, make no mistake, is in trouble.
It is awash in a culture that has nothing to do with being
Hispanic, black, gay, straight, a woman or a rhinoceros. A
reckless, selfish culture that will spend — has spent — every
American dime and intends to spend every borrowable Chinese dime it
can lay its hands on. A culture absolutely divorced from the hard,
realities of economic life and the consequences for everybody of an
endlessly growing government that can never — will never — have
enough tax dollars to support it if they took every last dime from
every millionaire and billionaire in the land.
There will be consequences for the decision made on this past
election day. The next four years in America will be grim.
And being the guy who wants to merely rearrange the deck chairs
on the Titanic, as it were, is all Jeb Bush appears to be
about.
Of the many challenges that need to be addressed by the
Republican Party is the reality that moderate, Establishment
tinkering-at-the-edges politics are not only an abysmal failure at
the national ballot box, they are a disaster as a governing
philosophy.
Say again — a disaster.
Jeb Bush… nice guy that he may be…has thus far shown no ability
whatsoever to rise to that challenge.
That New York Times front-page story?
It was nothing more than the first bars of music in the next
verse of the same old, same old GOP Establishment song.
Here comes Jeb Bush!
The next Mitt Romney!
