Leaving immigration aside, part of the problem with him as a “wonk” is that the “wonk” approach is just fundamentally discredited. This assumes that the system can be managed and tweaked to obtain results. As with education policy, which was Jebs big thing.
The trouble is that government policy in general just does not seem to work as expected, ever. The unanticipated consequences are always bigger than the objectives, and the execution of policy is in the hands of systems that mutate them randomly. It does not matter what the objective of a law is, it will be captured and modified to suit the requirements of random actors playing the bureaucratic-regulatory game.
It’s like, in Jebs case, he is claiming to be a great pilot, knowing all the cockpit controls, but the fact is that the cockpit controls are disconnected and the control lines are being moved by gangs of gremlins playing tug of war. The plane is out of control.
As for instance with education. Seventy years of large scale experiments in reform, from both left and right, have improved nothing (improvements here and there are trivial), and arguably we are worse off. Nobody knows how to reform this mess, even Jeb Bush. If he thinks he has fixed anything significant in Florida hes delusional.
As H.L.Mencken wrote, "Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats"
This is that time.
The people are not looking for a policy wonk, someone to tinker around the edges. That’s what was elected for so many years and it hasn’t worked. We want a barn burner.