“When The Applause Dies For Jeb Bush”: He Misjudged The Depth Of The Anger And Division Within His Own Party
“Please clap,” Jeb Bush wryly told a subdued crowd in New Hampshire last week, a moment that epitomizes his problem.
The pundits call it lack of traction. Among too many voters it’s lack of interest.
If Jeb bombs in New Hampshire, he’s done. Even if he doesn’t quit the race, it’s over.
A year ago this scenario was unimaginable. He had more money, more brains, more connections and more governing experience than any other Republican wanting to be president. Like many people, I thought his nomination would be a slam dunk.
The gaseous rise of Donald Trump upended everything, but not only for Jeb. The other candidates had to scramble, too. Some did a better job.
Sure, Iowa is a silly place to start a presidential campaign. Its demographics are freakishly white, and the GOP electorate is anomalously dominated by evangelical Christians.
Still, Jeb spent plenty of time and money there, and wound up with only 2.8 percent of the vote. That’s miserably weak, and there’s no positive spin.
What’s happening? The answer is, for better or worse: Not much.
Jeb hasn’t made any huge, embarrassing blunders on the campaign trail. He’s not obnoxious or unlikable. True, he’s not an electrifying personality, but in most election cycles that wouldn’t disqualify him.
Obviously, he misjudged the depth of the anger and division within his own party. He isn’t the only candidate to get caught off guard.
But he is the only Bush on the ballot, and that’s probably hurt him more than it has helped. Jeb isn’t the one who invaded Iraq and basically exploded the Mideast. He isn’t the one who jacked up the deficit with war spending and then left the U.S. economy teetering on a cliff.
That was his brother, but seven years later lots of voters haven’t forgotten. Before committing to Jeb, they need to be convinced that he’s way different from George W., that he’s wiser and more careful, and that he doesn’t have a Dick Cheney blow-up doll riding shotgun.
So far, there is no sign of a grass-roots pro-Jeb frenzy. The fact he was Florida’s governor for two terms isn’t wowing the masses — even in Florida.
Polls here show Jeb trailing Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. He is only slightly ahead of the sleepwalking Ben Carson.
How is this possible? That question is echoing among the heavy hitters who gave more than $100 million to Jeb’s super PAC. They’re running out of patience.
Jeb’s new strategy is tag-teaming with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to tear down Rubio, who surged impressively and finished third in Iowa. Christie is playing the Don Rickles role, insulting Rubio in public, while the Bush team bankrolls a flurry of anti-Marco ads in the media.
The New York Times reports that Jeb has already spent $20 million attacking his former protege. I guess this means no more workouts together at the Biltmore gym.
It’s a grim battle for the sane wing of the Republican Party, which means placing at least third in New Hampshire.
The positioning is crucial because Trump’s vaudeville act is starting to fray, and the icy zealotry of Cruz scares many conservatives.
If this were a script, you would now write in a timely entrance by the seasoned, well-credentialed Jeb Bush.
Except, wait — there’s baby-faced, inexperienced Marco ahead of him. Way ahead.
Here’s a guy who has accomplished zero in the Senate, flip-flops when he feels the heat and can’t even manage his own credit cards. How is he beating an old pro like Jeb?
By successfully casting himself as a fresh and electable alternative. Rubio’s only got one speech, but he’s good at it. Ironically, he grew up to be slicker and more calculating than his mentor.
Such is Jeb’s desperation that he has a new campaign commercial using a photo of Terri Schiavo. She was the brain-dead woman whose husband and parents were locked in a legal fight over the continuation of life-support procedures.
As governor, Jeb inserted himself into the case, ultimately involving his president brother and Congress in the effort to keep a feeding tube in Schiavo, who’d been comatose for 13 years.
Eventually the courts put a stop to the political meddling, and she was allowed to die.
The episode was Jeb’s worst mistake in office, an obscene governmental intrusion into a private family tragedy. Now he’s dredging up the memory in hopes of attracting extreme right-to-life voters.
If he asks you to clap, you know what to do.
By: Carl Hiaasen, Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, February 8, 2016
“Calling Off The Dogs, For Now”: Anti-Choicers Pulling The Punch On Planned Parenthood?
Assuming Ben Domenech knows his right-wingers, which I would guess is the one thing he does infallibly know, he’s solved a big mystery for us in a column yesterday. A few weeks ago the whole hep conservative world was aflame with promises and threats about defunding Planned Parenthood, even if it took a government shutdown. Erick Erickson was hyperventilating nearly hourly about how the GOP needed to lay down and die if it did not follow this course of action to the bitter end. Presidential candidates were climbing on board in due order.
Then–well, Mitch McConnell allowed as how it wasn’t going to happen, the presidential candidates and conservative media stopped talking about it, and even ol’ Pope Erick seemed to back off. What’s up with that?
According to Domenech, it was actually the big antichoice groups that called off the dogs:
For the time being, Capitol Hill Republican leaders are on the same page as the national pro-life groups – a shutdown strategy is not their preference, because it makes it more likely Democrats will win in 2016, and that means you miss probably your best opportunity in a generation to get rid of Roe v. Wade. Capitol Hill Republicans are looking to the pro-life groups to provide them cover by not scoring a Planned Parenthood-funding continuing resolution, and most of the big groups are expected to go along with this strategy.
Wow. If the National Right to Life Committee doesn’t support dragging the whole country to the bottom of hell in order to kill off its bitter enemies at Planned Parenthood, then why should anyone else? Domenech seems to think Ted Cruz may be tempted to outlank not only McConnell and the other presidentials but the National Right to Life Committee, yet probably won’t in the end. Domenech thinks that jawing about a Planned Parenthood-free continuing resolution for weeks may be a superior strategy, mainly because he shares the common antichoice delusion that women will give up their reproductive rights–or perhaps enough men can be convinced to just take them away from women–if they can all be forced to spend a few weeks watching the PP sting videos (it’s an article of faith among these birds that people like me or you have never even once discussed the issue). If Republicans make that choice, then they may actually learn that a sizable majority of the American people still favor legal abortion and know enough about Planned Parenthood’s services to know a smear when they see one. The last such teaching moment for the GOP, the Terri Schiavo affair, didn’t seem to do the trick, did it?
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, September 2, 2015
“Jeb And The Falwells: A Match Made In Heaven”: The Histories Of Liberty University And The Bush Dynasty Are Closely Intertwined
Jeb Bush left Protestantism in his 40’s to convert to Roman Catholicism, and he’s widely perceived as the most moderate potential 2016 presidential contender.
So, at first blush, it may seem a little odd that Liberty University—the largest Christian (mostly evangelical) university in the country—gave him the honor of delivering its commencement address.
Liberty is nothing if not conservative. And conservatives hate the establishment. Right?
Wrong.
In fact, the Bush family and the Falwell family are a match made in heaven. And their bond is likely to be a boon to Jeb’s White House dreams.
Jerry Falwell, the single most influential conservative Christian power broker of the 20th century, founded Liberty in 1971 to foster evangelicals’ political and cultural clout.
Since then, the school has had some dramatic ups and downs, with the downs reaching their lowest in 1990 when the school faced $110 million in debt.
But Falwell died and God provided: Thanks in part to the pastor’s hefty life insurance policy, the school paid its dues, got in the black, and catapulted to a higher place than ever in the conservative firmament.
And even when it was short on money, it never lost its political cachet.
The histories of the university and the Bush dynasty are closely intertwined.
In 1980, former congressman and U.N. ambassador George H. W. Bush ran for the Republican presidential nomination with a less-than-red-meat record, and he was pro-choice as Reagan’s vice president. His beliefs could have permanently soured his reputation with evangelicals.
That’s where Falwell comes in: The reverend endorsed Bush in the 1988 Republican presidential primary, even though Pat Robertson—an evangelical televangelist whose ideological resume had much more overlap with Falwell’s—was also a contender.
This has often been chalked up to rivalry between the two preachers. But it was more than that.
“Establishment recognizes establishment,” said one prominent evangelical leader who was close with the late Falwell.
As he explained, Southern evangelicals have been part of their region’s cultural establishment for decades, and in a way that their Northern counterparts couldn’t have dreamed.
When it comes to said cultural establishments, Northern evangelicals have been on the outside looking in, while those from the South have been on the inside looking out. So Southern evangelicals are much more comfortable with the possession and the exercise of cultural and political power than Northern evangelicals are. And nobody possessed and exercised political power quite like the Bushes, including Bush 41, a literal senator’s son.
So Falwell had an immediate commonality with the Bushes that helped solidify their relationship. They may have differed in policy, theology, rhetoric and a host of other details. But in one key area, they had everything in common: In their respective spheres, they were boss.
“These two families have each played an iconic role in modern, American politics, and their influence has intersected on not a few occasions,” said Johnnie Moore, a former senior vice president of Liberty University.
“When it did intersect, it was a force to be reckoned with. There will be two political dynasties represented on that stage at Liberty University this weekend whose influence is not only undeniable, it’s incalculable.”
In 1990, Bush found himself at Liberty, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the reverend and delivering the commencement address to a crowd of evangelical voters who had helped secure his predecessor’s legacy.
And Bush 43 wasn’t the only so-called establishment-type to win Falwell’s imprimatur.
A few years after Sen. John McCain put him on his list of “agents of intolerance,” the pastor invited him to deliver the university’s 2006 commencement address.
The two broke bread, a reconciliation that boosted McCain’s 2008 presidential efforts.
And Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr., invited Mitt Romney to give the school’s 2012 commencement address. His decision to give that platform to a Mormon enraged many conservative Christians. But Jerry Jr. and Mitt Romney had commonality where it counted: They were both the heirs of dynasts.
If George H. W. Bush had a good relationship with the evangelicals in Falwell’s orbit, George W. Bush had a magnificent one.
“In 41, they’d take our calls,” said the aforementioned evangelical leader. “In 43, they’d call us.”
And now it’s Jeb’s turn.
And Liberty’s protestants will likely make him feel right at home.
And even though he’s pledged allegiance to Rome, they still see him as one of their own: the kid brother of their favorite president ever and the unabashed social conservative icon who tried to keep Terri Schiavo alive.
And, per excerpts of his speech provided to reporters in advance, Jeb will speak their language.
“Whatever the need, the affliction, or the injustice,” he plans to say, “there is no more powerful or liberating influence on this earth than the Christian conscience in action.”
“Consider a whole alternative universe of power without restraint, conflict without reconciliation, oppression without deliverance, corruption without reformation, tragedy without renewal, achievement without grace,” he’ll add, “and it’s all just a glimpse of human experience without the Christian influence.”
Consider a country without Falwell’s influence, and you might be considering a country without the Bushes.
By: Betsy Woodruff, The Daily Beast, May 8, 2015
“Stealth Religion-Based Support”: Jeb’s Strategy With The Christian Right; Osmosis
If you are used to thinking of Jeb Bush as this Establishment Republican that hard-core conservatives–including the Christian Right–mistrust, this little nugget from a recent National Journal piece by Tim Alberta and Tiffany Stanley might be a jarring reminder of the long reach of Jeb’s family:
[P]owerful Christian conservatives are operating what amounts to a stealth campaign on Bush’s behalf. Some are old allies from the Florida days; others are holdovers from George W. Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Some are both, including Ralph Reed, president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a longtime friend of Jeb’s who served as Southeast regional chairman of George W.’s 2004 reelection effort (and thus practically lived in Florida). Multiple GOP sources say that Reed has been urging Jeb Bush for several years to make a 2016 run and spoke with him recently to game out the campaign. Like many of the organizations that Bush’s supporters lead, Reed’s coalition demands impartiality from its leaders, so Reed can’t openly back his man—unless, as some suspect will happen, Reed ultimately decides to join the campaign officially.
This makes Jeb’s decision to blow off the big Iowa cattle-call of Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition this weekend a bit more interesting, eh? Seems Jeb would prefer quiet consultations with his close friend Ralph Reed to open pandering. And indeed, that’s the theme that comes through from stem to stern in the Alberta/Stanley article, which begins with Jeb simultaneously refusing a formal vetting session with Iowa Christian Right kingpin Bob Vander Plaats while trying to charm him privately. We also learn that last summer Jeb flew out to Colorado to hobnob with the leadership of Focus on the Family, and spent a whole day with Russell Moore, the highly influential head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He’s extremely close to the president of Florida’s Ave Maria University, sort of the Harvard of hyper-traditionalist Catholicism (and the site of Rich Santorum’s now-famous “spiritual warfare” speech). And he has the support and advice of Mark DeMoss, who was the Romney campaign’s chief liaison to conservative evangelicals in 2012–not to mention the positive memories of many Christian Right folk about his role in the Terri Schiavo saga of 2005.
At a minimum, if Jeb wins the GOP nomination, he will not have to waste time on any courtship of conservative Christians. But at a time when (a) some Christian Right leaders like Russell Moore are expressing a preference for less noisy and more strategically minded political champions and (b) there will be an awful lot of the noisy types in the field, Bush may be quietly competing already with Scott Walker for stealth religion-based support. And he doesn’t really even have to blow many dog whistles: it’s more a strategy of osmosis, where Christian Soldiers learn to view him as a comrade-in-arms who is all the more effective for trying not to set off too many alarms in the secular-socialist enemy camp.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Political Animal Blog, The Washington Monthly, April 22, 2015
“Culture-Warrior-In-Chief”: If You Liked The Handling Of The Terri Schiavo Case, You’ll Love President Jeb Bush
As Republican presidential hopefuls begin to pile into yet another clown car, we hear again and again that Jeb Bush is the sane, “establishment” choice for the job.
Anybody who thinks that Bush would provide a less radical alternative to the likes of Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee should just think back to a decade ago, when Bush was at the center of one of the most egregious government intrusions into private lives in recent memory, a macabre cause célèbre that sickened people across the country but delighted the right wing.
Ten years ago this week, Terri Schiavo died. She had been in a persistent vegetative state for 15 years, many of which had been taken up with a legal battle between her husband, who wanted to remove the feeding tube that was all that was keeping her alive, and her parents, who wanted to keep it in place.
The Schiavo case was a weighty one. But the religious right, with the help of Jeb Bush and his big brother in the White House, turned it into a vicious, public culture-war battle.
Who can forget when Bush, under increasing national pressure from the religious right, personally wrote to a judge in Schiavo’s case? When Bush’s lawyers and the Florida state legislature rushed through a blatantly unconstitutional law allowing the governor to issue a “one-time stay” of a court order? When Bush convinced Republicans in Congress to intervene, with Bill Frist memorably offering a snap medical “diagnosis” of Schiavo on the Senate floor without ever seeing the patient?
Throughout the ordeal, Bush used every connection available to him to intervene in the Schiavo case. Even after Schiavo’s death, he tried to instigate a criminal inquiry into her husband.
As Schiavo’s husband chillingly told Politico this year, if Bush and others could do this to him and his wife, “they’ll do it to every person in this country.”
“That man put me through misery,” he told the Wall Street Journal. “He acted on his personal feelings and religious beliefs, so how can he talk about limited government?”
It’s no wonder that Bush is now downplaying his role in the Schiavo case. At the time, an overwhelming majority of Americans wanted the government to get out of the family’s private struggle. But the case still has a strong resonance with the religious right, and to many of them, Jeb Bush is its hero.
Bush displayed a similar respect for “limited government” when, as governor, he tried to personally intervene to stop a 13-year-old girl and a 22-year-old rape victim from having abortions. These cases, like that of Schiavo, show an astounding willingness to ignore heart-wrenching personal stories in favor of an unyielding ideology, to blow up private stories into national culture war battles, and to sacrifice a stated commitment to “limited government” to an intense state interest in a single person’s most intimate decisions.
And let’s not forget Bush’s comments during his first gubernatorial run comparing what he called “sodomy” to pedophilia and drunk driving — over the top, even for the right wing. Just this week, he immediately came to the defense of Indiana’s legalization of discrimination only to walk back his comments in front of big donors. So much for his declaration that he is his “own man.”
Bush may be the pick of the Republican establishment, who hope that maybe he won’t come across as crazy to mainstream voters. But his history in Florida shows that he is just as ready as Huckabee or Cruz to be the culture-warrior-in-chief, and he has a record to prove it.
By: Michael B. Keegan, President, People For the American Way; The Blog, The Huffington Post, April 2, 2015
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