It’s clear that you shouldn’t write former Governor Jeb Bush’s political obituary yet — at least not for 2012 and beyond, as you can see from this article:
At a time when the conservative movement is looking bereft, humbled by midterm-election defeats and hungering for a presidential candidate to rally around, Jeb Bush delivered yesterday in Washington a resounding endorsement of conservative principles, bringing his audience repeatedly to its feet.
In his lunchtime remarks to the Conservative Summit, Bush struck every conservative chord, blaming Republicans’ defeat in November on the party’s abandonment of tenets including limited government and fiscal restraint.
You wonder if his list of people to blame would include you know who?
“Don’t take offense personally if I get mad at Congress,” the Republican former Florida governor began. “It’s important for us to realize we lost, and there are significant reasons that happened, but it isn’t because conservatives were rejected. But it’s because we rejected the conservative philosophy in this country.”
He added, “If the promise of pork and more programs is the way Republicans think they’ll regain the majority, then they’ve got a problem.”
So don’t count Jeb Bush out.
It’s refreshing, though, to learn that Republicans were defeated in 2006 in many key races and lost control of Congress largely because of Congress.
Apparently a lot of reports were wrong about few of the other causes that contributed to the loss as well as the people championing them.
But the significance of this Washington Post piece is that Jeb Bush is still an option — after 2012, which assumes either the Democrats will win or a Republican who’s elected will step aside, be dumped as party standard bearer, or die in office. The subtext of this is that the Bush political machine and its intricately connected network will be lying in wait for the second Bush restoration:
To Ed Gillespie, a prominent lobbyist and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Bush’s two terms in Tallahassee — where he developed a reputation as a tax-cutter and staunch spending hawk — exemplified conservative politics at its best, and what makes for a compelling presidential candidate.
“For those who are worried if you can put forward a vigorous conservative policy agenda in a state like Florida and still get elected and still be popular: Our keynote speaker left office with approval ratings above 60 percent,” Gillespie said.
“If he were former two-term governor Jeb Smith, he might be in Des Moines today,” Gillespie said, alluding to presidential hopefuls’ campaigning.
Truer words have never been spoken…in more ways than one.
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.