"I Am Not Running For President."
That is present tense. I am not sure Barack Obama is technically running for president right this moment. While Politico reported that Jeb "Says No to 2012 Run," a review of the tape shows he did no such thing, and simply told the WHAS reporter that he was in town for education reform and to stump for Rand Paul in the Kentucky Senate race. The number 2012 wasn't mentioned by Bush or the reporter, although WHAS pretty clearly implied in the question that Bush might be running for president in the very near future.
But what may have been more enlightening was a statement he made about the president, and even the casual moments caught on film of Jeb Bush after the formal interview was over. Bush makes his bucks these days pushing education reform around the country, and the priority he places on that was notable when he said the following statement:
"This is one place where President Obama deserves some credit."
Afterward, he boasted to a waiting colleague about the nice thing he said about "our president." These are NOT the remarks of a man getting ready to challenge the re-election of an incumbent. It doesn't close the door. Indeed, if Obama ever moved toward education reform at the federal level as a major part of his platform, this could open the door for Jeb to "reconsider." But it shows Bush isn't gunning for Obama yet.
His quotes, of course, were peppered with the standard talk of the "incredible expansion of government in our lives" and the extremely hypothetical "Republican majority in the Senate." Bush wants to play a major role in Republican politics on a regional, if not national, level. He has offered endorsements and made appearances for candidates in Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky and, of course, Florida, Florida, Florida.
Someday, Jeb Bush will probably run for president. But as I have said before, I suspect 2012 is not the right year to do it. The Bush brand is still a tattered one, beaten down by eight years of imperialism, chronyism and basic bad government by the W White House. And while that was not Jeb's doing, he gave his full-throated endorsement to his brother's poor policies every step of the way.
Al Gore resisted running for president in 2004 because, as he told 60 Minutes, "the focus on that race would inevitably have been more on the past than it should have been when all races should be focused on the future." A vote for Jeb Bush in 2012 would inevitably be a vote to return to the Bush years pre-2008, even more so than W's candidacy in 2000 was viewed as return to his father's administration.
Besides the fact I don't think many are anxious to return to those failed policies, I doubt that is the race Jeb Bush wants to run. He has always billed himself as a bringer of innovative reform. He built his national brand on the A-Plus education reforms in Florida. And when his name comes up in political circles, he is always touted as an "idea guy" within the GOP.
The Republican party today is running on a message of obstruction. In many ways, the mechanisms of the House and Senate leave legislative candidates for federal office little choice about that. They cannot drive their own agenda forward, and therefore are relying upon scare tactics and a promise to stop whatever socialist tea-hating anti-Americanism which the racist rank-and-file believes is emanating from the White House.
We will see how well that works in the Congressional races this fall, but a message of destruction won't engender support for a White House run. And I will reiterate again that if the candidates Jeb Bush has endorsed this do not win, that won't help him much either if we wants the Republican nomination in two years. Jeb Bush knows that, and unless the political atmosphere changes significantly before 2012, he is smart enough not to run this time. He will have a better chance at winning in 2016 or 2020. That demands a lot of patience, but President is one job where you don't get a second chance. When you run, you win or you're done.
I don't think Jeb Bush is done.
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