Jeb Bush has made a series of off-message comments recently — accepting the notion that a minimal tax increase would be acceptable if offset by spending cuts, praising the current education secretary, criticizing the GOP’s tone on immigration. Now there’s this:
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said today that both Ronald Reagan and his father George H. W. Bush would have had a difficult time getting nominated by today’s ultra-conservative Republican Party.
“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad — they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement, doesn’t allow for finding some common ground,” Bush said….
Jonathan Chait responds to this with a post titled “Jeb Bush Ready for 2016.” Chait’s conclusion:
To understand what Bush is saying, you need to anticipate how the party might diagnose the causes of a loss in 2012, and then you can see how he is setting himself as the cure….
If you try to imagine the Republican consensus after a potential losing election, it will look like this. It will recognize that its harsh partisan rhetoric turned off voters, and will urgently want to woo Latinos, while holding on to as much as possible of the party’s domestic policy agenda. And oh, by the way, the party will be casting about for somebody to lead it.
Chait’s making a subtle point: Jeb isn’t really any more moderate than the current crazies, except on immigration, but his tone is more moderate — and that’s going to be the winning formula in the GOP in 2016 if Romney loses this year.
That subtle point is utter nonsense.
Sorry — the party isn’t going to moderate by 2016 if Romney loses. It isn’t going to moderate in policy and it isn’t going to moderate in tone. I don’t care how pugnacious Romney is now. I don’t care how many hippies he punches. I don’t care how wingnutty his running mate is. If he loses, the post mortem from the most influential right-wingers is going to be: we nominated a RINO, the same way we did in 2008, and we lost to the Kenyan socialist. The way to win is to nominate a true conservative.
Yeah, I know: the party elders may be desperate to dial down the craziness. But remember, they were similarly desperate after 2008. Remember the “pizza summit” in March 2009 featuring … um, Jeb Bush? That effort to put a new, mellow face on the GOP was soon utterly swamped by the tea party movement. If advocates of moderation try it again, they’ll be slapped down again.
If you think the GOP will go mellow in 2016, you must believe that Jim DeMint, Rush Limbaugh, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Dick Armey, Charles Koch, David Koch, Sheldon Adelson, and Joe Ricketts (that’s a partial list) are all going to die in the same plane crash between now and then. You also have to believe that the mainstream press is finally going to define extremism and intransigent partisanship as overwhelmingly Republican phenomena, and stop saying “Both sides do it!” Not gonna happen.
So, really, Jeb, just stop it. Demonization will continue to be in fashion in your party for the foreseeable future.
(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.)
Two words for Gov. Jeb to remember: Terry Schiavo.
And another neck he put his heel onto – Targeting a Mentally Retarded Pregnant Woman
I hope the delusions of this Bush are well and completely destroyed.
Losers think women don’t count.
Four years is an extremely long time in politics. Obama represented a generational shift in US politics in 2008, just as Clinton did in 1992. Sorry, Jeb, wrong generation in 2016; same goes for Hillary on the Democratic side. We are going to have to start looking at different benches in both parties. Folks born between 1960 and 1970 will make up the Presidential pool. So, 2016 is going to look much different from what anyone thinks at the moment.
Also, the growing economic and international crisis leadership caused by Republican obstructionism and Democratic corruption is not going away by 2016. Either one of the two parties could disappear as a result of the 2014 elections. It depends on when people get fed up with the crap.
It did not take a plane crash to deliver the US from the hysteria of McCarthyism in 1954. The crazy finally exceeded the bounds of what the public considered decency. Rush came close with the war on a college student this year. But he walked it back. Murdoch is still in legal trouble that might resurface again. DeMint seeks Mitch McConnell’s job and might get it after November (if the GOP in the Senate is smaller or more crazies). Roger Ailes doesn’t front for the crazy, he just hires them; culture and ratings determine who he hires (he dropped Glenn Beck). Kochs, Adelson, and Ricketts will be around unless we can bleed their finances real good in 2012 and 2014 (they got a stalemate for their 10:1 spending in Wisconsin).
The commercial media are slowly dying or moving out of politics and news. And the blogosphere is so competitive, without limiting legislation like CISPA, as to make it not yet profitable to build a blogosphere megaempire–although there are a large number of players trying, even commercial media trying to save their bottom lines.
That said, look for the GOP to try to use the Wisconsin pattern in other Democratic strongholds. (Washington state and Vermont in 2012; the legislatures in New Jersey and Virginia in 2013; New York, California, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Connecticut in 2014).
DeMint in 2016? Bring it on!
But who will run on the D side? It won’t be Biden and it won’t be Clinton. No one else is in the wings. Rahm Emanuel? Gag me with a spoon, as young people used to say.
The only governor born 1960 or after is Martin O’Malley. Senate is pretty long in the tooth. Major figures in the House have been around a while. Rahm misses the 1960 date and does have ambitions. But jumping from a mayor’s chair to the Presidency is quite a jump.
Among the slightly olders are Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, John Lynch, Andrew Cuomo, Pat Quinn.
It’s a mighty thin bench. But get beyond Bobby Jindal and Nikki Haley and so is the Republican bench.
Incumbency has induced sclerosis in both parties.
Rahm’s got the ego. Pat Quinn will be lucky to be elected Governor again. As I predicted in another thread, Illinois is becoming Indiana, just like Wisconsin.
All the rest are DINO’s, Booman’s dream.
The only governor born 1960 or after is Martin O’Malley. Senate is pretty long in the tooth. Major figures in the House have been around a while. Rahm misses the 1960 date and does have ambitions. But jumping from a mayor’s chair to the Presidency is quite a jump.
Among the slightly olders are Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, John Lynch, Andrew Cuomo, Pat Quinn.
You forget a name or two. One I can think of is the current Governor of Montana. He’s to the left of that hideous Cuomo(think another Evan Bayh) but to the right, mostly, of Sherrod Brown. And at least in Montana, Schweitzer loves to rub the GOP’s nose in any win Schweitzer gets.
I love Schweitzer, but he has two (or three) problems.
(3. Montana can only bring 3 electoral votes, so no home state advantage)
Everything lives on the internet. http://schweitzerforpresident.blogspot.com/
Andrew Cuomo desperately wants to run in 2016. And I do think Hillary might run. O’Malley makes three.
Not Hilary, I’m not even sure she will be alive in 2016. She looks terrible. My 81 year old sister-in-law currently in the hospital looks better.
Please, God, no!! Cuomo is another Evan Bayh, although a little savvier(see gay marriage). And remember, Democrats don’t treat losers very well. So I seriously think Clinton will run in ’16. If she does, she’ll get smoked. We don’t need more years of corporate friendly policy.