Posted on 12/16/2014 8:35:13 AM PST by LeoMcNeil
Shocking political news this morning! Jeb Bush has announced he is going to “actively explore” running for President. This, no doubt, comes as a huge shock and surprise to everyone. It was only a few days ago that the New York Times got wind of Bush’s super secret meeting with John McCain wherein they discussed how to make irrelevant the conservative base of the Republican Party. Funny how in politics super secret meetings somehow get discovered and splashed all over the New York Times. It’s as if someone planted the story.
After McCain and Mitt Romney, party moderates, got trounced by Obama the Bush’s make their return to offer us the son more like Bush 41. Bush has to know the Republican base wants nothing to do with another moderate, which is why he’s asking McCain of all people how to marginalize conservatives. Bush might as well ask Mitt Romney as well. Both McCain and Romney marginalized conservatives in the GOP primaries by being the only viable moderate candidate running. With 39% of the primary vote, Romney won the nomination. He and McCain can tell Bush how to marginalize the base, what they cannot do is tell him how to win the base back so he can win the White House. If the purpose of running for President is winning the big prize in November, it doesn’t pay to marginalize and outrage your own party’s base.
Nevertheless, that appears to be Jeb Bush’s goal. He’s announcing his candidacy early in order to raise money and convince Mitt Romney and Chris Christie not to run. If he can convince them not to run, all he needs is 39% support and a boatload of money to win the nomination. His problem will come in the general election though. His immediate problem is that the conservative base has already shown that it won’t show up to support a moderate. Around four million conservative Republicans didn’t show up on election day in 2012, costing Mitt Romney the election. I was one of those voters, I did not vote in the Presidential race. (I voted in all races down ticket) Those people aren’t going to show up for Jeb Bush.
Jeb Bush has a bigger problem though, his name. The United States has never had political dynasties. We have had only two sets of father and son elected President. (Adams and Bush) We have a handful of political families that for a generation or two manage to get themselves elected to high office in one state. The Kennedy’s were for one generation a major political family, with Ted’s death though not one remains in the Senate. Generally, the public doesn’t like political dynasties which is why they’re generally rejected. For Jeb Bush this isn’t good for him at all. His dad and brother were President, the latter is still reviled in many circles. Jeb Bush isn’t going to enter a general election with a clean slate as a newly crowned Republican nominee. Instead, he will enter a general election wherein his last name alone will polarize independent voters. By the end of George W’s term, he had lost the trust of the country. Jeb Bush will carry on that torch for better or more likely worse.
For conservatives, Jeb Bush is a complete nightmare. He has the ability to win the nomination if he can fence out Romney and Christie. A lone moderate can pull 39% and with conservatives planning to eat their own with a massive field of conservative choices our votes will be diluted and we’ll be stuck with Bush III. Not only would Jeb Bush be Bush III, he’s arguably the most liberal of the bunch. Ultimately we must make the argument that he’s too liberal and that he cannot win because of his name. The too liberal will fall on deaf ears when it comes to the 39% but after two disastrous elections even the rank and file liberals in the party want to win. Jeb Bush cannot win in November because moderates won’t like his name and conservatives won’t vote for him.
As long as one of the oligarchs wins, that’s all that matters.
For the US Oligarchs it is a win-win in Nov if it is an incestuous Bush-Clinton 2016 race.
We MUST FIGHT in the Primary!!!
Rally around CRUZ and be VERY VOCAL about boycotting any Bush nomination...(or Romney or Christie)
CRUZ!CRUZ!
CRUZ!CRUZ!
CRUZ!CRUZ!
CRUZ!CRUZ!
CRUZ!CRUZ!
CRUZ!
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CRUZ!
CRUZ!
CRUZ!
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CRUZ!
CRUZ!
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CRUZ!
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I am a Ted Cruz supporter. I think, though, that Jeb Bush would not lose the social conservatives as did Romney in 2008. He would lose a new and different branch of conservatism...not defense, not fiscal, not social. I think of them as the 'immigration security conservatives'. They are fed up with illegals taking jobs, taking welfare, lowering wages, and utilizing free health and food programs. They believe this open border nonsense is insecure: it gives opportunity for enemies, disease, and freeloaders to injure our great nation.
How large is this group? It gave the GOP their victory this fall. It includes social, defense, and fiscal conservatives, so it is probably larger than any one of those groups.
Jeb Bush will announce against open borders, amnesty, and illegals or he will lose in the general election: same as Dole, McCain, and Romney.
No, but he can prevent a Conservative from winning the White House.
Not now, not ever.
RINOmney? Not now, not ever.
Any RINO? Not now, not ever.
So, let’s get some conservatives out there and back ‘em.
Jeb Bush is Karl Rove with hair. The plutocracy must be preserved.
Like it or not, Jeb Bush is going to be the R candidate, because that is who the MONEY PEOPLE want to run.
Frankly, there is no one else with the high profile required. It sucks, but that is how it is, folks.
I could get a surprise, but I doubt it, at this point. Mike Pence would be an option, but he likely couldn’t put together the money Bush could.
Cruz has already been marginalized by the media with the low-info’s as a “nutter”, and so has every other currently-celebrated “Conservative”.
The “Elizabeth Warren will be the Third Black President!” stuff to begin.
Jeb Bush failed to save Terri Schiavo from a court order murder carried out in his state on his watch. Period. End of story.
Keep in mind that the Holy Grail of the GOPe is to play center-right in a way that draws in more independent and center-left votes than it loses Conservative ones.
The problem with this is that the last several elections have been driven by base turnout. See (as Ive said before) the Breitbart article on Romney’s Orca failure and the PJ Media article on the success of the Dem’s “Catalist”.
My concern is that the political mechanics in the GOP (which I would distinguish from the GOPe) have taken away the wrong lessons and think that a great technical solution (which it looks like the RNC may have had this year) to GOTV doesn’t still require good cultivation of the Base.
Conservatives contesting primaries are indeed a fight to behold. Sort of reminds one of the bar fight scenes in western movies. When it's all over, no one is left standing but the wimps ... people like The Mormon Milquetoast, Jeb "el Chicano" Boosh, and maybe the neighborhood fat kid, Gov. Krispy Kreme. Now there's a ticket item!
Why don't all us "conservatives" meet at my house and pick one guy? Real bummer, this Two-Party System, ain't it?
That may be, but he is still viewed as pro life. He won’t lose ‘social conservatives’, in my opinion.
Good analysis.
I’d add that the “4 Million lost Conservative votes” in 2012 is something of a myth. Reading the Breitbart article on Orca, the issue (seeminly) wasn’t that they stayed home, but rather weren’t actively turned out to vote. There’s a bug difference between the two.
Unfortunately there's always the specter of someone, like the unemployed Santorum, willing to play stalking horse as long as needed for the benefit of the GOPe.
I will support Jeb the exact same amount he supported Terri Schiavo.
“My concern is that the political mechanics in the GOP”
The tens of millions of new Hispanic Voters, both illegal and legal, have changed the calculus, a lot.
I’m not sure Ted Cruz is the answer. Cruz has just as much experience as Barack Obama did two years before the election. While I’ll grant Cruz is a fighter, I’m not sure that he isn’t better suited in the Senate.
There are other conservatives out there like Scott Walker who have experience managing an executive branch of government. One of Obama’s biggest problems (which Republicans are the beneficiaries of) is that he has no idea how to lead or manage. He had no experience at it before getting elected and it’s really hurt him. Imagine how bad things would be if he were an effective manager of a massive socialist government. Cruz is all talk and no experience.
Then, I guess you can exclude me as a “social conservative,” The man had it within his power to save an innocent human from a tortured death. He failed.
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