You Freepers need to give him credit ... for being a common core, crony capital, unlimited spending, amnesty kind of conservative.
Posted on 12/28/2014 4:00:44 PM PST by xzins
We here at CHQ have observed an interesting phenomenon about former Florida Governor Jeb Bush – hardly a week passed after he met with Senator John McCain to discuss how to obtain the Republican presidential nomination without being a conservative until testimonials started flowing about how conservative Jeb is.
Of course these testimonials are mostly coming from Democrats and the establishment media, but they are slowly, but inexorably filling the top pages of Google, so that soon they will become the conventional wisdom.
Typical of this remaking of Jeb Bush were the comments former Democratic Florida State Senator Dan Gelber (and advisor to turncoat Republican Charlie Crist’s failed Democratic campaign for Governor of Florida) provided to Lloyd Dunkelberger, the Tallahassee bureau chief for Htpolitics.com, for a puff piece on Bush’s conservative credentials entitled “In past office, clues about the 2016 Bush.” (link at the end of this article)
Gelber, a former staffer to Georgia’s late Democratic Senator Sam Nunn said, “If you were in Florida any day he was governor, you knew he was a conservative… And I don’t say that as a compliment.”
As evidence of Bush’s conservatism Gelber or Dunkelberger, the article isn’t entirely clear who provided the analysis, says Bush “cut taxes for the wealthy, embraced anti-abortion and gun-rights legislation, privatized state services, battled teachers’ unions and expanded school vouchers.”
The problem with this list of allegedly conservative “accomplishments” is that some of them, such as cutting taxes for the wealthy, are merely liberal caricatures of conservatism and many of the others, such as Bush’s education “reforms,” while sounding good, did not actually translate into conservative policy results.
Take education "reform" for example. A foundational principle of conservative education policy is that local control is paramount, and that the parents and taxpayers who fund education should make the decisions regarding how their schools are run. The result of Jeb Bush’s education reforms were quite the opposite.
Just like Common Core is intended to accomplish on the national level, what Bush’s education reforms in Florida did was impose a rigid set of top-down standards that have resulted in a “teach to the test” curriculum that has stripped critical thinking, Western culture, life skills and citizenship out of Florida’s classrooms.
As Linda Kleindienst, then of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, wrote on January 7, 2007 as Jeb Bush left office, “Bush's legacy in this field [education] was mixed at best. Test results showed learning gains among fourth-graders, whose scores were easier to improve than those of older children, as well as minorities across all grade levels. But Florida's high school dropout rate and per-pupil spending continued to rank among the nation's worst.”
As we and many other conservatives see it, the result of Jeb Bush’s so-called reforms is a top-down education system and students who are taught to take multiple choice tests, but who can’t form a logical argument or name the three branches of the federal government – compliant drones for the Big Businesses that were the primary advocates of Jeb Bush’s “reforms” and that are now Common Core’s staunchest advocates.
Likewise Bush’s reputation as a fiscal “conservative” rests largely on his tax “reforms.” But the cost of government, as every principled conservative recognizes, isn’t what government collects in taxes, it is what it spends.
And on Jeb Bush’s watch Florida state spending ballooned by 52 percent, from $48.6 billion in 1999 to $73.9 billion in 2006.*And state expenditures per capita rose from $2,809 in 1999, to $3,942 in fiscal year 2006-2007.
Despite the establishment’s attempted remaking of Jeb Bush into a “conservative,” principled conservatives in Florida (and around the country) remember that, in a strange prequel to the imperial presidency of Barack Obama, when Bush left the Florida Governor’s mansion he was known as “King Jeb.”
As our friend Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute once observed, “The first President Bush was a disaster for advocates of limited government, as was the second President Bush, and there’s a very big reason at this point to be skeptical about version 3.0.” And that reason is Jeb Bush's real record, not the one the estabishment is peddling.
*South Florida Sun-Sentinel figures
For the 2007 version of Jeb Bush’s record click this link to read “The Jeb Bush Era Ends in Florida,” by Linda Kleindienst, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Sunday, January 7, 2007.
For the establishment’s remake of Jeb Bush as a “conservative” read, "In past office, clues about the 2016 Bush" by Lloyd Dunkelberger, Htpolitics.com Capital Bureau Chief, Saturday, December 20, 2014.
And on Jeb Bush’s watch Florida state spending ballooned by 52 percent, from $48.6 billion in 1999 to $73.9 billion in 2006.*And state expenditures per capita rose from $2,809 in 1999, to $3,942 in fiscal year 2006-2007.
GOP has to run to the right to win elections. Then, they govern to the left, if they win.
Numerous recent articles have either stated or implied that Jeb Bush is a conservative. That same Jeb Bush who was dissing the conservatives just a few days ago, when he sought advice from John McCain on how to run away from the conservatives.
They (media/GOPe) know they can only sell Jeb by trying to convince the conservatives that he is one of them. It worked to elect that ‘compassionate conservative’ Bush.
They’re running EXACTLY the same play as they did when W first announced:
“Oh he is REALLY waaaay more conservative than his dad, oh sheesh..!! Way, WAAAAAY more..!!!”
They said it a trillion times —it worked.
Is it ANY SURPRISE they’re just pulling the same stunt THIS time..?
Sorry I just don’t buy it.
I never will.
Don’t bring us another shrubbery!!!!
MAYBE, if Palin were on the top of the ticket....
my dogs turds are worth millions!
(saying so does not make it so)
What I get from all of these stories is a very strong flavor of “Jeb Bush is the conservative” and an unstated subtext “of the range of choices we will allow you.” Ain’t buyin’.
You Freepers need to give him credit ... for being a common core, crony capital, unlimited spending, amnesty kind of conservative.
“This ruse will not work again.
MAYBE, if Palin were on the top of the ticket....”
Of course it’s going to work again.
I fully expect the GOP to either run Jeb or Romney again.
I thought it might be Christie but he flamed out.
There’s nobody else in line at the moment that TPTB find acceptable.
Palin could maybe mount a respectable independent campaign but she wouldn’t win.
I absolutely do not support common core.
When soft-in-his-old-age George Will recognizes that Common Core is nothing more or less than imposing a National School Board on every school district in America, then it’s pretty obvious that Jeb Bush is a big government kind of guy.
When this article points out that his spending ballooned in Florida, then you know he is a big government republican.
When he talks about illegally entering the US as an act of love, then we know he’s a (nut) new world orderist who doesn’t believe in borders and national sovereignty.
Bush is being pushed by the liberal media as the candidate who has the best chance to beat Hillary. That alone is reason enough to not support him.
As much as I hate to quote Jessie Jackson, “Stay outta da Bushes”. Good advise from the other side for a change.
The Liberal Booshies suck. They've done enough damage to the US.
Yes, it will work. Bush will get all the money he needs.
Conservatives will have 11 people run, all of them will be underfunded, and each of them and their cadre of supporters will tear down the others because of supposed conservative errors in their resume.
In the meantime, the moderates will decide ahead of time who their real candidate is and all of them support him right out the gate with money, attack ads, newspaper articles, etc., etc., etc..
We will then get to choose between Bush and Clinton, the 2 poor little rich and famous kids whose turn it is to run.
Unless of course we all get behind one candidate with MONEY and organization before the first primary. That's not impossible, and it's probably a good thing that conservatives are an argumentative lot in most things, but in this primary selection season it is how we are manipulated. They use one of our strengths against us.
Jeb is going to be pushed by the MSM in order to strengthen Hillary or whatever communist they intend to run. If they can keep Jeb in until the end then they win by default as Jeb does not have a chance in H*ll of winning. No real conservative would ever vote for him, and not a whole lot of the rest of the population would either.
JB is an Amnesty loving POC and conservative would defect by the millions. I don’t think he can win a primary unless cornyn and rove and haley barbour pay blacks $15 each to vote like they did against the TEAPARTY in Mississipi because they don’t want TO LOSE POWER!! JEB BUSH NO!!
there will be primaries that decide the candidate
Will the solid south prefer Jeb Bush or Rick Perry?
Jeb is deeply invested in Obamacare, Common Core and amnesty. How conservative can he be? The Republican left will spin him as a “big government conservative,” and do it without a blush. Jeb will fine tune what Obama has done, adding his expertise and big business experience to areas where Obama’s incompetence held things back.
interesting no one has to put out stories of Sen Cruz being a Conservative.
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