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Heads Up: Another Member of THAT Family Waiting in the Wings

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ July 16, 2010Post a comment Email This Post Email This Post Print This Post Print This Post
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Com­ment: Against the back­ground of six hours of inter­views on the sub­ject of Russ Baker’s remark­able recent book Fam­ily of Secrets, it is worth con­tem­plat­ing the pos­si­bil­ity that Jeb Bush might attempt to per­pet­u­ate the Bush family’s polit­i­cal dynasty. Con­cerned cit­i­zens should care­fully weigh the Bush polit­i­cal machine and its legacy–so amply illus­trated by Russ Baker–and its poten­tial exten­sion by Jeb.

“The Bush Revival: How Jeb, Rove, Gille­spie Are Lead­ing the GOP Again” by Sam Stein; Huff­in­g­ton Post; 7/15/2010.

Excerpt: Simon Rosen­berg is the most bull­ish of Demo­c­ra­tic strate­gists. The for­mer Clin­ton admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial and head of the young non-profit group NDN has been the chief pro­po­nent of the belief that Barack Obama’s elec­tion pro­duced the oppor­tu­nity for a “30-to-40-year era of Demo­c­ra­tic dom­i­nance.” A spe­cial­ist in the polit­i­cal habits of dif­fer­ent demo­graphic groups (specif­i­cally His­pan­ics), he insists that, absent a dras­tic makeover, the GOP risks cement­ing itself “as irrel­e­vant to the 21st century.”

Sag­ging poll num­bers and pol­icy set­backs have done lit­tle to dis­suade these rosy prog­nos­ti­ca­tions. There’s only one thing that makes Rosen­berg ner­vous: another Bush.

“Jeb [Bush] is mar­ried to a Latina, is flu­ent in Span­ish, speaks on Uni­vi­sion as a com­men­ta­tor, his Span­ish is that good,” Rosen­berg said of the for­mer Florida gov­er­nor and brother to the 43rd pres­i­dent dur­ing a lunch at NDN head­quar­ters last week. “And if you look at the elec­toral map in 2012, you have to assume that Obama is going to have a very hard time in hold­ing North Car­olina and Vir­ginia. The indus­trial Mid­west, where the auto decline has been huge, has weak­ened Obama’s num­bers... a great deal. So Ohio, Michi­gan, Indi­ana and Wis­con­sin become a bit more wob­bly. So if you’re Barack Obama, the fire­wall is the Latin belt from Florida to south­west­ern Cal­i­for­nia. And there is only one Repub­li­can who can break through that fire­wall. And it is Jeb.”

Such a sen­ti­ment, Rosen­berg admits, car­ries a slight hint of hys­te­ria. After all, there is a good chunk of the coun­try that recoils at the idea of another pol with the Bush sur­name. But that chunk has begun nar­row­ing. And even within Demo­c­ra­tic cir­cles, there is an emerg­ing belief that in a Repub­li­can Party filled with base-pleasing dra­ma­tiz­ers or bland con­ser­v­a­tives, Jeb stands out. . . .


Discussion

7 comments for “Heads Up: Another Member of THAT Family Waiting in the Wings”

  1. They’re Baaaaack...

    Posted by terrafractyl | February 11, 2012, 6:59 pm

  2. “I used to be a con­ser­v­a­tive”:

    Repub­li­cans seek Jeb Bush candidacy

    Pub­lished: March. 1, 2012 at 11:31 AM

    WASHINGTON, March 1 (UPI) — Some Repub­li­cans are hop­ing for­mer Florida Gov. Jeb Bush enters the pres­i­den­tial race, say­ing he has the minor­ity sup­port Mitt Rom­ney and Rick San­to­rum lack.

    ...

    Bush con­tin­ues to win praise, despite declin­ing to run in the 2012 race. “I have the per­fect can­di­date — Jeb Bush. But he’s not run­ning,” Andy Card, who was chief of staff for Pres­i­dent George W. Bush, told CBS Wednesday.

    Jeb Bush’s crit­i­cisms of Rom­ney have won the atten­tion of con­ser­v­a­tive pun­dit Ann Coul­ter and offi­cials with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s re-election cam­paign, who sus­pect he may be gear­ing up to launch a cam­paign of his own.

    Bush told audi­ences at a gath­er­ing in Dal­las last Thurs­day, he hopes the can­di­dates’ approaches will change by the gen­eral election.

    “I used to be a con­ser­v­a­tive and I watch these debates and I’m won­der­ing, I don’t think I’ve changed but it’s a lit­tle trou­bling some­times when peo­ple are appeal­ing to people’s fears and emo­tion rather than try­ing to get them to look over the hori­zon for a broader per­spec­tive,” he said.

    Posted by terrafractyl | March 1, 2012, 9:51 am

  3. @terrafractyl, on top of things as usual.
    Imag­ine Jeb Bush emerg­ing out of the Repub­li­con con­ven­tion as the nom­i­nee play­ing out under the “Taqqiya Sun­rise” sce­nario out­lined in FTR #735 & 736. Octo­ber Surprise,anyone? The Bush team would pre­sum­able have inside info that it could use to mes­sage as one step ahead of Obama on for­eign pol­icy.
    Is it just me, or are events in the MidEast play­ing out very much like Dave Emory pro­jected in FTR #735 “Bay of Pigs Meets the Octo­ber Sur­prise: Lee Har­vey Obama and the Piggy Back Coup in the Mid­dle East”? When Dave is right—as he often seems to be—it’s gen­er­ally not good news.

    Posted by GrumpusRex | March 1, 2012, 11:47 am

  4. @Grumpusrex: It’s sur­real to see another Bush pres­i­dency emerg­ing as the thing that could save the GOP brand from the “dan­ger­ous extrem­ist” label its flirt­ing with in this pri­mary sea­son, and yet here we are. And there’s no rul­ing out an “American’s Elect” stunt either. A 3rd party run could end up peel­ing more off from Obama than the GOP, espe­cially with the shiny new ex-conservative Jeb lead­ing the ticket. There are so many strate­gic objec­tives that could be simul­ta­ne­ously car­ried out with a Jeb Bush run that the phrase “killing two birds with one stone” doesn’t quite cut it (A more aggres­sive type of metaphor­i­cally imagery might be necessary).

    Posted by terrafractyl | March 1, 2012, 2:56 pm

  5. By the way, any­one hear about the death of Andrew Breitbart?

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/02/us-usa-politics-breitbart-idUSTRE8201AV20120302

    This should be an inter­est­ing show for Dave to do when­ever he can get back on WFMU. =)

    Posted by Steven L. | March 1, 2012, 10:34 pm

  6. @Steven L
    It’s my per­sonal spec­u­la­tion from observ­ing Mr. Bre­it­bart at press con­fer­ences and inter­views that he may have been a coke­head of some sort, and that this may have con­tributed to his early death. I have no evi­dence to sup­port this the­ory other than my own gut feel­ings. He exhib­ited that inor­di­nate amount of blus­ter, aggres­sion, and high self regard that is char­ac­ter­is­tic of users of that drug.

    Posted by GrumpusRex | March 2, 2012, 7:16 am

  7. @GrumpusRex: Fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion into pos­si­ble drug habits would cer­tainly be interesting.

    Posted by Steven L. | March 2, 2012, 4:42 pm

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