Should Jeb Bush Switch Parties? - A Ruling Class ticket: Hillary and Jeb in 2016

The American Spectator ^ | December 18, 2014 | Jeffrey Lord

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Listening to all the stories about Jeb Bush and his angst over the conservative base of the Republican Party, the question occurred: Why doesn’t Jeb ease his conscience and his donors' wallets and just switch parties? Go now, become a Democrat—and then form an alliance with the wife of the man the Bushes affectionately call their “brother from another mother.” That being the woman George W. Bush has dubbed as being “like my sister-in-law”—Hillary Clinton.

After all, the Bush/Clinton alliance has already been on display, as I unknowingly noted in this column when Governor Bush presented former-Secretary Clinton with the Constitution Center’s “Liberty Medal” last year. As Breitbart reported at the time:

'Former Secretary Clinton has dedicated her life to serving and engaging people across the world in democracy,’ said Bush,the Republican former Governor of Florida,son of a former president and brother of another. ‘These efforts as a citizen, an activist,and a leader have earned Secretary Clinton this year’s Liberty Medal.’

The news launched the latest rash of Clinton-Bush stories,..........(Both Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, it must be noted,are former chairs of the Constitution Center—the job now held by Jeb Bush.)

These stories missed the point of what appears to really be going on with the Liberty Medal.

The point that I went on to make was that the Liberty Medal had become the highest award for service to the Ruling Class. No one identified with the conservative movement has ever received the award and presumably ever will. On the other hand, the 2006 award was presented jointly to George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton,with other recipients including Mikhail Gorbachev(2008),Jimmy Carter(1990) and Colin Powell(1992). Ronald Reagan? Margaret Thatcher? William F. Buckley, Jr.? Not on your life.

This added to another column I had written on Jeb Bush’s fixation with re-writing the history of the Reagan-Bush era....

[Hostage]

And at the same time they tell us this, they tell us the era of Reagan is a bygone era, we should forget about it, and the Tea Party is absolutely disastrous to future Republican fortunes and plans.

C'mon! Life is good for Beltway Bandits! Gruber scammed in $5 mil! /s

[Caipirabob]

You might win a primary, but you lose the election unless you have the base. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a democrat.

[newfreep]

Another column from Jeffrey Lord re: Jebster

“Not So Fast, Jeb Bush - The rigidity of moderation: Ex-Florida guv rewrites history of Reagan and Dad”

By Jeffrey Lord – 6.14.12

http://spectator.org/articles/35353/not-so-fast-jeb-bush

Excerpts:
Jeb Bush’s rose-colored memories aside, the fact of the matter is that moderate Republicans in 1980 — with George H.W. Bush in that mix — went out of their way to accuse Ronald Reagan of what Jeb Bush now calls a “strict adherence to ideology” and engaging in “the intensity of modern partisan warfare.”

Governor Jeb Bush seems somehow not to realize that of the four presidential elections of 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2004 — the elections involving his father and brother — the only one with a Reaganesque margin was the election in which his father went out of his way to campaign as Ronald Reagan’s conservative heir — 1988. The others were either lost outright (in 1992, after a moderate first term produced a conservative rebellion) or won by unnecessarily close margins — with the moderate “compassionate conservatism” as their domestic centerpiece in 2000 and 2004.

The real problem with Jeb Bush’s assessment is not just that it’s old news by some six or seven decades. Dewey Redux. The real problem is that Jeb Bush is decidedly making a ham-handed attempt to re-imagine both Reagan and the Reagan presidency — not to mention the Bush 41 presidency — in a fashion that, simply put, bears no resemblance to fact.

In other words, Jeb Bush is trying to re-write history in the service of one of the oldest stale political arguments that was long ago correctly relegated to the GOP’s political attic.

[ripley]

“The Federal Pen is a different story...”

The U.S. is now ruled by men and not the law.

There is no Federal Pen in the future of any of these people who swear to uphold the Constitution and yet rip it to shreds as they disregard it.

IMHO

[BCW]

Agreed!

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Jeb/Hillary 2016?

Kinda messy here now; my head just exploded....

[liberalh8ter]

Agree with everything you've said except you forgot to mention McConnell. He's the pernicious Boehner twin.

[Gen.Blather]

I predict that if the word “Democrat” becomes the next “communist” then the party will rebrand by changing its name. It will be a full-out Madison Avenue event complete with red, white and blue bunting, American flags and gorgeous (probably hired) people kissing babies. But, it will be the same old thing with a new wrapper.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[Travis McGee]

[Impy]

LOL, now look I hate Jeb but let’s not get silly, he’d be the most conservative national democrat by far, he could not win a rat primary in Florida and he certainly would never be nominated as Vice President, the delegates would plotz if Hillary chose him, it would like if McCain had chosen Lieberman, I’d bet they’d flat out rebel and reject him, reportedly McCain was told if chose Lieberman he’d have a fight on his hands, which is the only reason he didn’t.

[Theodore R.]

Both wannabe parties represent lobbyists more than the people who elect them.

But the American people cannot understand this.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Quite so.