A Jeb Bush Refresher Course for Conservatives

UPDATE: It is bad enough that Jeb Bush awarded the “Medal of Liberty” to Hillary Clinton on the 1st Anniversary of the Benghazi gun-running and murder of Ambassador Stevens, but he also has recently endorsed the Marxist/Bill Ayers COMMON CORE education initiative.

So it’s time to make re-familiarize ourselves with EXACTLY who Jeb Bush is, and how terrible his conservative track record is:

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I cringed when I read Rush Limbaugh gushing over the Jeb Bush Wall Street Journal piece today.  A few reminders of who Jeb Bush is for those thinking he is the “conservative” answer:

• Says calling Obama a “Socialist” is extreme (here)
• Says “GOP Needs to Forget Reagan” (here)
• Wrote an Op-Ed piece FOR a Florida Power rate hike (against Charlie Crist of all people) and took another subtle jab at the Tea Party.
• He OPPOSED Arizona’s Immigration law and fought hard FOR amnesty in the McCain/Graham bill.
• Dramatically increased spending for education in Florida although he did allow school vouchers.
• Jeb joined the Board of Directors at Lehman Brothers (yes the one that got bailed out by his brother) and left a “time bomb” on the Flo
• Jeb has a S&L scandal lurking with Tony Rezko like sources.
• He opposed offshore drilling for oil in Florida. Then flip-flopped for McCain.
• Was against Social Security privatization . (here)
• Joined Romney and McCain in 2009 to “rebrand” the GOP (here)
  Caveat: Bobby Jindahl also participated with rest of GOP Establishment and it is reported Sarah Palin signed on later but was not part of the original announcement.
• Of course he endorsed John McCain over Mitt Romney when Romney was the more conservative candidate in the race.

I want to make it clear I believe Jeb Bush is a good man. He DID try to reduce government in many places in Florida and pressed for many conservative initiatives of which many of us would approve.

But he suffers the same problem as Cain, Bachmann, and Santorum.  He is mostly unknown to the national audience.  The national public vetting will seem like a HUGE, NEW revelation at every attack. And there now is even LESS time to “get to know” the Bush brother and make earlier “discoveries” seem like nothing.

I’ll leave it for everyone to  figure out how badly the Bush name would hurt him.  I tend to think there is enough left over resentment or at least a bad aftertaste that it would be a very, very big hill to climb.

Remembering his swipe at the Tea Party in 2009, my first thought at Rush’s glowing report was that for once – Rush had been Mitt-Romnied and totally forgotten how he ran away from core conservative values when it mattered most.  He finally addressed it later in his broadcast.

ANY OTHER HOPES?

There are only two GOP prospects that have been nationally vetted that are conservative.  (Some would debate me on this but Rush Limbaugh is fully in this camp, reemphasizing his view that Newt is anti-establishment conservative along side Santorum and Bachmann).

Palin and Gingrich.  Romney is vetted and I think he would win against Obama, but I have no doubt he’d has no driving desire to scale back government as both Palin and Gingrich exhibited when they had power. 

The caveat I’ll give Santorum is that no one will find anything.  After years fighting in Democrat bastions of Pennsylvania, it would have turned up.  However, that doesn’t mean false charges will appear that will feed that incredible hatred toward Rick by the gay mafia.  As PolitiJim followers know, my only problem is the “leadership” and “executive” thing.  We conservatives know how he will have conservative principles, but we really don’t know if he can manage people.  In any event we conservatives will not decide the general election.  Our candidate MUST inspire people outside conservative ranks to a vision for this nation, not just a critical film review of the last 3 years.

Let me know if you have any other serious conservative candidates (no, Ron Paul fails on foreign policy, executive experience and communication) that we can consider in the comments below.

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Posted in: 2012,campaign,Florida,Jeb Bush,politics