For someone who is ostensibly just thinking it over about whether or not to run for President in 2016 former Texas Gov. Jeb Bush seems to be a frantic, busy little bee this morning. He’s appearing on five Sunday morning political talk shows, Crooks and Liars’ Nicole Belle reports. The likely reasons:
- 1.Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul — the straw dog character of some of his claims notwithstanding (there are no signs American policy makers were considering killing Americans with drones in cafes) — seemingly won the hearts of many in the GOP base, many younger voters (check Twitter and Facebook) and most of all, the Republican Party’s real kingmaker, Rush Limbaugh with his 13 hour filibuster.
- 2.Bush fumbled on his start out of the gate (if he is running) with his muddled position adjusting on immigration reform and still needs to bolster his image.
- 3.The making of Rand Paul as an instant political hero means Bush doesn’t want to offend Paul’s supporters (as Arizona Sen. John McCain did) so he needs to praise the flowering by filibuster of the conservative grass roots. He did that already on CNN, proclaiming: “”I’m excited that I think we’re seeing the renewal of the conservative movement in the Republican Party and I want to be part of that, for sure..”
Yes, it could be argued he’s doing all of this to sell his book, but at the rate he’s going he’ll soon be on Spongebob Squarepants, too — and this kind of compressed appearance schedule is more in keeping with someone starting a full court press to alert donors and people within his party that he’s all but in, than someone just peddling a book with policy statements.
If he soon visits Donald Trump, then you’ll KNOW he’s in..
UPDATE: Bush wonders why journalists are so obsessed with politics, but it does make you wonder with all these TV appearances. Still, he expresses dismay:
Jeb Bush must have been tired of fielding questions on a potential 2016 run after a day of talk show appearances.
“Man, you guys are crack addicts,” he said to Meet The Press host David Gregory. “You really are obsessed with all this politics… okay, heroin addict. Is that better?”
Bush was responding to a question from Gregory on how he stacked up to another assumed 2016 hopeful from Florida, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio.
“Marco Rubio is a great guy,” the former Florida governor said. “Put aside the politics for a moment, we’ve got big challenges, and Marco Rubio, to his credit, is working on those and he deserves a lot of credit for it. I’m very proud of him.”
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.