Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose pronouncements have been marked by a candor that’s quite refreshing, says watch Florida Governor Jeb Bush because he could run for President one day:
Probably ’08 is a little bit tricky, but ” ’12 or ’16 isn’t. And he’s a young enough guy (53) that he has a great future,” Gingrich said on the Political Connections television show airing today on Bay News 9. “I just think his natural, personal ability is so great that people are going to realize he is not his father and he’s not his brother. He’s a very unique, charismatic leader with extraordinary capabilities. … Jeb Bush may well be the most innovative (governor) in the entire country.”
The St. Petersburg Times story contains a lot of Gingrich tidbits:
Which potential Democratic presidential candidate most worries him? “Either (former Virginia) Gov. Mark Warner or (Indiana) Sen. Evan Bayh have a lot to offer the Democratic Party because they’re more moderate,” he said, predicting either would have a very tough time beating Hillary Clinton for the nomination.
Gingrich said Sen. Clinton will have a tough time winning over voters in much of the country, including Florida, but Republicans are foolish to underestimate her: “She’s very smart; she works very hard. Anyone who thinks we’re going to beat her easily is just wrong. We can beat her if we have better ideas and better solutions, and people have a choice between a left-wing view of the world and a solution-oriented view of the world. We’re not going to beat her just with an anti-Hillary campaign.”
Gingrich likewise fretted the Republican loyalists might stay away from the polls in November out of disenchantment with Republican leaders in Washington.
A word about Jeb Bush is indeed in order.
Given his extremely high approval ratings, it’s clear that Jeb is NOT his Dad or his brother. GWB is increasingly looking like his Dad, as the AP notes:
Through his presidency, George W. Bush has worked hard to avoid repeating the mistakes of his father. He has done almost everything differently, yet now finds himself in the same hole despite trumping his dad by winning a second term.
He is roughly at the same place in the polls where the elder Bush was at the low point of his presidency, with only about three of every 10 Americans registering approval. Like his father before him, this president faces a rebellion among conservatives, an uncertain economic outlook and the prospect of Republican losses in November.
Still, in the end, it’s likely that many GOPers would find his candidacy attractive…in a year other than 2008. But even then the ranks might be smaller if his brother continues on the course he is taking (alienating some Republicans). If GWB ends his term an unsuccessful President (highly likely), will the GOP leap at a chance to nominate a third Bush to the highest office (likely but it may take a bit more doing)? And what about Democrats and independent voters? George Bush is losing them in droves and the Terri Schiavo controversy won’t win Jeb many non-GOP-base voters.
It hasn’t been done — a third member of a family becoming President. But, then, it isn’t typical to see two members of the same Republican family essentially book-end a Democratic presidency, either. Still, THREE Bushes? The conditions would have to be ripe for a Republican victory because a lot of Democrats and independents will feel twice bitten…three times shy…
UPDATE: The New York Times has a story today on the speculation that Jeb is going to run sometime after 2008. It explains the factors in the governor’s future thinking which includes not running in 2008 but perhaps going for it after that:
First, Republicans say that running on the heels of what has shaped up to be a dismal second term for his brother would be difficult, if not impossible. Even if President Bush’s approval ratings were better, Republicans say that Jeb Bush, for all his political popularity in Florida, would still have to define himself in the shadow of his brother’s White House.
“The first question would be, ‘What would you do differently than your brother?’ ” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican who is close to the Bush family. “And that’s a pretty tough race to run.”
Others say that for all the prevalence of political dynasty in America — the Adamses, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys — Bush III would still be a hard sell. “After two generations of this, I can’t imagine what it would take to make the American people sail again with another Bush,” said Kevin Phillips, the author of “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush,” a book that is sharply critical of the Bush family.
Second, friends of the Bushes say that Jeb does not want the intense focus of a presidential campaign on his wife and daughter, and that his mother, for one, is opposed to a 2008 race.
Note that as we’ve seen in recent political elections — particularly those starting with the first George Bush and the success of attack politics tactics that reached its peak under his consultant Lee Atwater and was refined by Atwater’s protege Karl Rove — in elections it is not necessarily how a candidate SELLS HIM/HERSELF to the voters. It is often about how skillfully a candidate can UNSELL HIS/HER OPPONENT to the voters.
Presumably, when he wants to run, Jeb would have some of the present Bush team members on his side plus some of his own. He’d be a formidable candidate some day in terms of getting the nomination; the rest would depend on Democratic stumbles before and during the campaign and how aggressive the Bush team would want to be in a general election. On that last score, are there any doubts about how aggressive that would be?
2008? Not gonna happen. After that? Jeb will have years to show national voters that he may be a Bush but he isn’t a twin.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.