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The Energy Department on Wednesday approved two loan guarantees worth more than $1 billion for solar energy projects in Nevada and Arizona, two days before the expiration date of a program that has become a rallying cry for Republican critics of the Obama administration's green energy program. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the department has completed a $737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy for a 110 megawatt solar tower on federal land near Tonopah, Nev., and a $337 million guarantee for Mesquite Solar 1 to develop a 150 megawatt solar plant near Phoenix. The loans were approved under...

Please, Jeb. Pretty please? To hear a growing number of conservative activists tell it, the person best equipped to excite Republicans and beat Barack Obama in 2012 is a man who has no intent to run. The Jeb Bush chatter says as much about the seemingly anemic Republican presidential field slowly taking shape for 2012 as it does about the former Florida governor's stature in the GOP.

While Jeb Bush continues to insist that he will not be a candidate for president in 2012, several National Review writers seem to be encouraging the former Florida Governor to take the plunge. John J. Miller, Kathryn Jean Lopez, and Rich Lowry have all come forward in recent days to sing Jeb’s praises and speculate on another Bush candidacy.

John J. Miller has a cover story in the new issue of National Review that’s a compelling portrait of the accomplishments of Jeb Bush. Four years after leaving the Florida governor’s mansion, he remains one of the most impressive Republican politicians in the country, a formidable policy mind with the political chops to drive conservative reforms even out of office. So why isn’t he running for president? Bush told Miller what he’s said to others, too — he won’t run in 2012, but he’ll consider 2016. This is a mistake. Bush should run now for at least eight reasons: 1)...

Former Arkansas Governor turned Fox News host (and now Florida resident) Mike Huckabee says he won't run for President in 2012. Well, he won't if former Florida Governor Jeb Bush decides to run. Huckebee came out of national obscurity to place second in the 2008 Republican Primary, and is widely expected to make a bid again in 2012. Which he probably will considering Jeb Bush has denied time and time again that he'll ever run for President. "Having gone through the process before and knowing just what it entails, it's not a decision I'll make lightly," Huckabee tells The National...

Jeb Bush has been widely regarded as a challenger to Barack Obama in 2012 who was most likely to succeed. However, Politico is reporting that he announced today that he is not running for president. If true, this is a blow to the GOP’s hope to take over the White House in 2012. What made (or makes) Bush such an ideal candidate is his ability to attract independent voters when matched against Obama. Many of the other candidates who are thought to be in the top tier of contenders are able to attract much of the base, but have trouble...

Many Republicans are still searching for that ideal 2012 presidential candidate – someone who can fire up both the fiscal and social conservative wings of the GOP while luring swing voters. And, in recent months, the chatter has often turned to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Bush apparently sought to quiet the murmurs today, telling a Kentucky TV reporter that he isn’t running. Bush has said that since leaving office in January 2007 that he would focus on making money and advocating for education reforms, which were a centerpiece of his tenure as governor. Even as polls show that he...

Here’s a new entry into the GOP 2012 presidential field (and by new I mean so old he’s new again): Jeb Bush. On his show this morning Chris Matthews pondering “who might beat Barack Obama in 2012?” This of course is the question plaguing the Republican Party. For all the attention and hoopla surrounding Sarah Palin no one is really convinced that even if she could snag the Republican nomination she has any shot at beating President Obama in the general. Matthews points out that what Jeb — the Bush brother the family had originally intended for the White House...

In the 2008 presidential election, then-candidate Barack Obama seemed almost to be running against George W. Bush, his Republican predecessor. In 2012, it's not out of the question that he'll run against a Bush for real. In a New York Times piece out today, Jeb Bush -- the former Florida governor, brother of George W. Bush and son of George H.W. Bush -- complained that President Obama and his administration have been using his predecessor as an excuse. "It's kind of like a kid coming to school saying, 'The dog ate my homework,'" Bush said of the current administration's criticism...

A former White House speechwriter, Mark Thiessen, has jumped to the defense of his former boss, writing for the Washington Post that George W. Bush “established a conservative record without parallel.” Even by the loose standards of Washington, that is a jaw-dropping assertion. I’ve been explaining for years that Bush was a big-government advocate, even writing a column back in 2007 for the Washington Examiner pointing out that Clinton had a much better economic record from a free-market perspective. I also groused to the Wall Street Journal the following year about Bush’s dismal performance. “Bush doesn’t have a conservative legacy”...

The capper came Thursday when, at the top of the 7 o'clock hour, right after Vice President Joe Biden, Bush made a rare network television appearance on NBC's Today Show. The intensely private Bush's interview with the overly familiar Matt Lauer rattled Florida political circles. Was this the beginning of a Jeb juggernaut that would culminate in a 2012 presidential bid? http://www.mcclatchydc.com/310/story/83386.html

Jeb Bush is unique in that he is both unknown and known. He can certainly win a GOP primary, and can raise the money to compete with frontrunners Palin and Romney. I think Jeb will be getting more involved over the next several months, starting with the Florida senate primary. I also think Cheney is a Jeb proxy, and that his attacks are meant to undermine Obama while moving the country back into the Bush/Cheney policy direction, awaiting a new leader to take the torch from the former Vice President. Remember, Cheney earlier this year, unprompted, suggested he would support...

It's looking highly likely that the 2012 Republican presidential nominee will be a retread. With Gov. Mark Sanford at wit's end, and Sen. John Ensign joining Sanford at adultery camp, and Gov. Jon Huntsman going to China, and Gov. Bobby Jindal flopping in his first big national TV appearance, and Gov. Mitch Daniels saying he doesn't want to be president, and Gov. Sarah Palin running such an undisciplined operation up there in Alaska, the prospect for fresh blood is thinning. We got some old party leaders from down South—Gov. Haley Barbour and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich—and a couple of...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says he's not running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 — at least for now. The brother of former President George W. Bush told the Indiana Education Roundtable in Indianapolis Wednesday that he's not running for anything "right now," according to Indianapolis radio station WIBC. "I'm focused on my own private life and trying to help others continue their public service," Bush said. "It's a secondary role, not a primary role, and it'll probably remain that way." Of course, traveling around the country to participate in events such as the roundtable is a good...