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 then there's the one that made me leave the GOP.
"See you at the bill signin'."
I've had enough of the Bushes.
No, Bush will loose. Just like all the previous GOPe efforts to go to the middle.
I’m sure FR has some posters who think Jeb is a conservative.
Probably the same ones who are always telling us to vote for the lessor evil.
“there will be primaries that decide the candidate
Will the solid south prefer Jeb Bush or Rick Perry?”
The solid south will probably be spit at least 4 ways just like last time.
TPTB aren’t going to let anyone they don’t have strings on get anywhere near the nomination. If by some weird fluke someone like Cruz did look like he could get the nod, they’d either buy him, or sink him.
The primaries will decide just as you say so why did Romney win last time if so many people hated him?
Divide and beat is the oldest strategy in the history of the world.
Bump.
Do you mean the primaries or the general?
Terri Schiavocould not be reached for comment because she was starved to death on Jeb’s watch.
General. The one that used to count. We’ll see going forward if The W0n will relinquish power.
Just shows how stupid everyone is. J Bush is at best a RINO and may even be a liberal.
Yep, he should have had the Florida State Patrol enter that hospital and seize her, transporting her to some state or nation where she’d have been safely out of the reach of the judge who believed her death to be a sacrament.
Common Core and Open Borders say the guy could well be a progressive.
The consensus on Free Republic was different from the Republican majority that nominated Romney. Republicans across the spectrum did not hate Romney
Actually there was no consensus on Free Republic. There was narrow minded sanctimonious self righteousness that would tolerate nothing beyond narrow private agendas. There was strong religious bigotry. There were foolish candidates that tailored a message to the specific narrow minded agenda.
Conservatives have no one to blame but themselves. Unless conservatives throw away their paper towel tubes through which they look at their own narrow agenda they will never again succeed at electing a president they can barely tolerate
The press is attempting to pick the most liberal Republican they can find to run against the most liberal democrat they can find.
The MSM loved McCain - not one of ‘em voted for him... but they sure loved him.
There are supposedly many who oppose Jeb as the 2016 nominee. We are asking for you to simply visit and “like” this page. Jeb Bush has 127K followers on Facebook. We aim to surpass that number. Please help us reach that goal by liking and sharing this page.
If Jeb Bush is the Nominee, I Will Abandon the GOP in 2016
No more shrubs.... just another liberal in my book....
“The consensus on Free Republic was different from the Republican majority that nominated Romney. Republicans across the spectrum did not hate Romney
Actually there was no consensus on Free Republic. There was narrow minded sanctimonious self righteousness that would tolerate nothing beyond narrow private agendas. There was strong religious bigotry. There were foolish candidates that tailored a message to the specific narrow minded agenda.
Conservatives have no one to blame but themselves. Unless conservatives throw away their paper towel tubes through which they look at their own narrow agenda they will never again succeed at electing a president they can barely tolerate”
Haha. That is quite possibly the most revealing and honest thing I’ve ever seen here.
I don’t get worked into a lather about it very much because I figured out a while back that the less I let my personal feelings get vested in things beyond my control the happier I tend to be in my everyday life.
I love FR but Freepers aren’t the base of the GOP neither or we a majority. As you illustrated we’re not even a majority here on FR lol.
As I said earlier I’m expecting it to be Jeb simply because there’s not another candidate in line that’s acceptable to the majority of the GOP.
I also believe that if Freepers could get a candidate they could mostly agree on past the primary, that candidate would get squashed in a general election.
The consensus on Free Republic leading up to and including the early primaries was pretty solidly against Romney. It was only after it became evident that Romney would defeat the fractured conservatives did many freepers begin arguing for the lesser of two evils. JR reluctantly got to the same place not very long (roughly 3 weeks??) before the election.
Romney ran a terrible campaign, was personally weak, and excited exactly 2 people, his wife and his oldest son.
if anyone should know it’s comservatives. and he isn’t one.
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