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.
Spending skyrocketed under all the Bushes. They are very generous with other people’s money and freedom.
Squahed like Dole, McCain and Romney?
“Romney ran a terrible campaign, was personally weak, and excited exactly 2 people, his wife and his oldest son.”
Romneys biggest problem was having to run against himself in the primary and in doing so flip flopped on everything he’d ever supported as Gov of MA,
It also didn’t help that he was seen as a friend of big banks, big business and totally out of touch with the issues of a typical American.
Jeb did such a great job with Terri Schiavo, after all. /loathing
Having serious reservations about a candidates agenda is not “narrow minded agenda” it’s called freedom, and with all the time that is to pass before the nomination, and the general election, you want to form a consenses right now to nominate a GOPe candidate?
The last two candidates fit that mold and they lost!
The GOPe of today has a narrow minded treasonous agenda that American patriots have died fighting against in past history!
“Squahed like Dole, McCain and Romney?”
Yep although to be fair McCain would have won had he not immediately followed GWB.
None of these guys won but neither will any of the people championed here.
That’s just how it is at the moment.
“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.”
My recollection matches this exactly. The only thing I will add by way of embellishment is that Obama won 51-47. A 2.5% swing would have altered the outcome. Given Obama’s first term record and the general state of the economy and world affairs, the Republican Party should have won handily. The tragedy here is NOT that the terrible Romney campaign led to a thrashing; rather it was that the Republicans narrowly lost an election that perhaps another candidate would have won.
I agree with that. There's no doubt in my mind that Gingrich, Perry, Bachman, or Santorum would have been far better. No way that Gingrich would have allowed Candy Crowley to enter into the debate on the side of his opponent.
Bachman was a scrapper.
Perry was a fast learner.
Santorum was on the moral high ground.
and yet, there is not the courage to get behind the COPc, the conservative wing that can achieve conservative agenda
By many, the freedom you mentioned is valued rather than actually achieving any thing .Bitching and moaning is preferred by many to actual accomplishment
——A true conservative-——
Then there is no such person. The conservative’s conservative Senator Cruz is playing the game most astutely
Unmentioned is a consensus among the business powers, not necessarily the Chamber of Commerce, that will fork over the enormous sums for the campaign.
We have tried it your way over and over. That hasn’t worked.
And another Bush, Christie or Romney won’t work either.
“We have tried it your way over and over. That hasn’t worked.
And another Bush, Christie or Romney won’t work either.”
Well, it’s not really my way. I didn’t vote in the 2012 presidential race. Left it blank.
Neither Romney nor McCain could win the general election but the favorites here couldn’t even win the nomination.
Sorry if you find it upsetting but no FR favorite will win in 2016 either.
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.
It was the same with McCain and Romney and blessed by the GOPe.
All you freepers should just give up and worship Bush!!
They are just too powerful!
Obama has been such a dud, we don’t have to settle for another one, a dud like JEB.
His Dad was a disappointing one-termer and then we had three two-termers in a row.
The American middle is so disappointed with “hope and change” that “we” (not the GOP, but conservatives) could put up a ficus tree and win.
But another Bush is a loser.
This is nothing new. The Nazis were "right wing" too (despite being Socialists), don't ya know.
Aside...only a Communist would consider a Socialist to be right of them so what does that say of Democrats and the establishment media?
Why was Bush asking McCane a few weeks how to win the primaries without conservatives?
Because neither of them are conservatives. McCain lost, so I guess Bush is getting ‘lessons in losing’.
I don’t find it upsetting. I’m used to conservatives getting beat.
But Christie, Bush or another RINO will not win either.
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