Thread: Great news from Jeb Bush: I’ll govern like Lyndon Johnson did

Great news from Jeb Bush: I’ll govern like Lyndon Johnson did

posted at 5:21 pm on May 15, 2014 by Allahpundit

You’d think a guy who’ll be attacked endlessly for his brother’s policies on Iraq wouldn’t want to tie himself to the president responsible for Vietnam too.
In fairness, he’s talking about governing style here, not policy substance. But why he’d feel obliged to mention LBJ at all in making this point, I have no idea.

Bush did not address Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty programs, about which Ronald Reagan once famously quipped, “We had a war on poverty, and poverty won.”
Instead, he was referencing Johnson’s mastery of the so-called sausage-making process in Congress.
He vowed to approach the presidency as “master of the Senate,” as biographer Robert Caro described Johnson.
“He went and he cajoled, he begged, he threatened, he loved, he hugged, he did what leaders do, which is they personally get engaged to make something happen,’’ Bush said of Johnson. Bush cited Caro’s latest book about Johnson, The Passage of Power, which covers the first part of Johnson’s presidency.

He went on to say that it’s “completely un-American” to let illegals live “in the shadows” because of course he did. Needless to say, his LBJ comments are a knock on Obama, who’s frequently compared to Johnson by lefties who are unhappy with the pace of what O’s achieved. LBJ knew how to schmooze and terrorize Congress to get what he wanted; The One, ever aloof, is too remote to get his hands dirty like that. On a basic level, all Jeb’s saying here is that he’ll be hands-on. But as a Twitter buddy pointed out, if he wanted to make the point that he’ll be a dealmaker as president, he could have reached for an example that’s far more appealing to conservatives — namely, Ronald Reagan. The fact that he reached back to the Great Society instead, knowing that conservatives already view him as suspect, is baffling. Jonah Goldberg wrote a column the other day expressing his mystification at the fact that Jeb seems to feel no need to woo the righty base at all. Granted, he’s not going to be the conservative choice in the primaries, but neither was Romney and he managed to win enough righty votes to build a winning coalition with centrists. More importantly, the more alienated conservatives feel from Bush, the less likely they may be to help his campaign in the general if he’s the nominee. There are plenty of righties, I think, who’ll grudgingly vote for the most “electable” candidate even in the primaries, despite their personal preference for someone who’s more conservative — so long as they feel that candidate is interested in their votes. As it is, you’ve got Jeb running around praising Lyndon Johnson and babbling about amnesty to anyone who’ll listen right at the moment that voters are starting to pay attention. What’s wrong with this picture?
Via the Corner, here’s Jonah talking about this at length. One quibble with what he says, though: I’m not sure that Jeb is DOA in Iowa or New Hampshire if he’s totally estranged from conservatives. It’ll make his task much harder, but there’s a fair chance that, between Christie’s troubles and Rubio’s hesitation if Bush runs, Jeb might clear the field in the party’s center if he jumps in. If that happens and the conservative field ends up crowded with Pauls and Cruzes and Pences and Carsons and Perrys (and Wests?), the righty vote could split enough to let Jeb squeak through. I have no idea why he’d want to gamble on all of that happening, but maybe he does.



Tags: govern, Jeb Bush, lbj, lyndon johnson, obama, republican

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/05/1...n-johnson-did/

Fox News

"I'm not an anti-Bush guy, but there is something fundamentally weird - almost 'Game of Thrones-ey' - about having, for a quarter of a century, every Republican president come from one nuclear family." –Jonah Goldberg, Fox News contributor



Why Jeb Bush May Not Run for President

Goldberg joined Jon Scott this morning to go over the reasons why Bush may not be able to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother and win the GOP nomination.
Fox News

Goldberg: Another Bush Presidency Would Be a 'Little Game of Thrones-ey'


by Fox News Insider // May 15 2014 // 3:15pm
As seen on Happening Now

Video at the Page Link:

In a column this week for the National Review, Jonah Goldberg explains "Why Jeb Bush's Turn Might Not Come" in 2016. He joined Jon Scott this morning to go over the reasons why Bush may not be able to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother and win the GOP nomination.
Goldberg brought up the idea of yet another member of the Bush family vying for the White House.
"I'm not an anti-Bush guy, but there is something fundamentally weird - almost 'Game of Thrones-ey' - about having, for a quarter of a century, every Republican president come from one nuclear family."
But that's not the biggest reason why Goldberg does not believe Bush will end up as the 2016 nominee. He points out that in past years, eventual Republican nominees focus on "wooing" the conservative base.
Goldberg said George Bush, George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain all used that strategy to some extent to win the nomination. He explains that Jeb does not seem interested in doing that so far, and already drew criticism from the right for his comment that immigrants come to the U.S. illegally as an "act of love."
"I have sympathy with the point, but that is a crazy thing to say if you're trying to win over the base of the Republican Party," said Goldberg.
Watch his full analysis above and let us know: who would you pick right now on the GOP side for 2016?

Also, hear what Rand Paul has to say about 2016 on Hannity, tonight at 10p/1a ET.

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Rove Responds After Raising Questions About Hillary Clinton's Health

Bush Family Said to Be in Favor of Presidential Run By Jeb

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Posted in: // Jonah Goldberg // Jeb Bush // 2016 Election

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/05/15...ame-thrones-ey

Who would I pick for the GOP candidate? They have not emerged yet, whoever they are? On the other side, no one has attracted my vote either! This is republican propaganda all orchestrated to cause us to bury the free kill remarks. That just makes the whole party suspect, too! You need to discuss a candidate's warts just as openly as his strengths, or you are NOT credible!! Then as near as I know Jeb has done nothing to assuage feelings about his free kill suggestion! That is bad, but he may be being honest by staying silent, he probably meant that comment,"free kill for undocumented persons.":

Originally Posted by AirborneSapper7

Goldberg joined Jon Scott this morning to go over the reasons why Bush may not be able to follow in the footsteps of his father and older brother and win the GOP nomination.

He points out that in past years, eventual Republican nominees focus on "wooing" the conservative base.... He explains that Jeb does not seem interested in doing that so far, and already drew criticism from the right for his comment that immigrants come to the U.S. illegally as an "act of love."

I'm working on Bush-man's campaign theme song right now. It begins

"Falling in love with love is falling for make believe!

Falling in love with love is playing the fool!"

Anyone else want to chip in?
*******************************************

Americans first in this magnificent country

American jobs for American workers

Fair trade, not free trade

Mark Levin

Jeb is running & the full throated P.R. campaign is under way - in the New York Times & elsewhere



Jeb Bush Gives Party Something to Think About

Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, seems to have defined himself as the anti-George W. Bush, showcasing his curiosity, intellect and care for bureaucratic details.

The New York Times|By Michael Barbaro

Jeb Bush Gives Party Something to Think About


Former Gov. Jeb Bush signing a copy of “Immigration Wars,” a book he wrote with Clint Bolick, in Maryland last year. His reputation as the “deepest thinker on our side,” according to the strategist Karl Rove, has earned him support in the Republican establishment.
Alex Wong / Getty Images

By MICHAEL BARBARO
May 24, 2014

As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush flew in Ivy League social scientists for daylong seminars with his staff and carved out time for immersive brainstorming sessions he called “think weeks.”
A voracious reader, he maintains a queue of 25 volumes on his Kindle (George Gilder’s “Knowledge and Power” among them, he said) and routinely sends fan mail to his favorite authors.
A self-described nerd, he is known to travel with policy journals and send all-hours inquiries to think tanks. (A sample Bush question: What are the top five ways to achieve 4 percent economic growth?)
As Mr. Bush, 61, weighs whether to seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, he is dogged by fears of voter exhaustion with a family name indelibly linked to his older brother, a self-assured Texan who prized instinct over expertise and once acknowledged a lack of interest in slogging through long books.
But in ways big and small, deliberate or subconscious, the younger Mr. Bush seems to have defined himself as the anti-George W. Bush: an intellectual in search of new ideas, a serial consulter of outsiders who relishes animated debate and a probing manager who eagerly burrows into the bureaucratic details.
Allies said that reputation — as what the Republican strategist Karl Rove called the “deepest thinker on our side” — could prove vital in selling Mr. Bush as a presidential candidate to an electorate still scarred by George W. Bush’s legacy of costly wars abroad and economic meltdown at home.
But the bookishness and pragmatism that strike mainstream Republican leaders as virtues highlight the potential difficulty that Mr. Bush may face in igniting the passions of more conservative members of the party.
The questions he grapples with most frequently, and enthusiastically, revolve around improving the effectiveness of government in areas like education, immigration and criminal justice. It is a message unlikely to electrify Tea Party and libertarian wings of his party that are openly hostile to the very idea of government.
“There is skepticism that maybe Jeb Bush wants too much government in people’s lives,” said Greg Mueller, a Republican strategist who has advised the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes and Bob Dole. “I don’t know that he will ever win over the limited-government conservatives.”
Mr. Bush, who has cast himself as a party reformer, seems unfazed by such critiques: At times, he has appeared to deliberately fan them by publicly castigating the leaders of his own party for adhering to failed tactics and outdated messages.
After Mitt Romney’s resounding defeat in 2012, in a presidential campaign that struggled to leaven its harsh tone with an optimistic vision for governing, Mr. Bush was unsparing, warning that the Republican brand risked becoming a millstone, “associated with being anti-everything.” Much of the electorate, he said, believes that “Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker.”
Those who have hashed over policy and politics with Mr. Bush describe him as a conservative animated less by rigid ideology than a technocrat’s quest to identify which solutions work best.
“He’s not interested in proving some sort of conservative point that less government is better, though he might believe that,” said Philip K. Howard, the author of influential books about law and government, who has spoken frequently with Mr. Bush. “In all of my dealings with him, he’s interested in how you make government deliver effectively. What are the incentives? How do you hold people accountable?” He added: “These are the discussions, frankly, that you want government leaders to have.”
Friends and former aides have variously described him as a “policy wonk,” an “ideas junkie” and, as Arthur C. Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, called him, “a top-drawer intellect.”
It is a cerebral image that Mr. Bush readily and conspicuously embraces, inviting inevitable — and not always flattering — comparisons with his brother. (While George W. Bush, 67, left Yale with gentleman’s C’s after four years, Jeb Bush raced through the University of Texas in two and a half, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.) He insisted, for example, that his official portrait as governor contain a bookcase filled with his most beloved titles, among them “Cross Creek,” a memoir by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
These days, the younger Mr. Bush peppers his speeches with statistics, academic-sounding references to “quintiles” and self-deprecating jokes about his own geekiness. A few weeks ago, he boasted to a crowd of Republican donors that he was “nerdy enough” to read City Journal, an obscure policy magazine published by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, then recited the names of his favorite writers at the publication.
Aubrey Jewett, who has studied Jeb Bush as a professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, said he “seems to go out of his way to make it clear that he’s different from his brother, by the way he talks about himself, his goals and the details of public policy.”
And how he governed. Under Mr. Bush, who served from 1999 to 2007, the Florida governor’s office at times resembled a mini-university. New employees showed up to find a copy of a treasured Bush book on their desks: “A Message to Garcia,” the inspirational 1899 essay about a United States soldier who journeyed to Cuba to win the alliance of a rebel leader.
He created a speakers series, inviting Colin L. Powell, the former secretary of state, and Virginia Postrel, a prominent cultural writer, to the Statehouse to speak to his cabinet. And he participated in an informal staff book club that churned through works of literary fiction, like Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” and sociological tracts, including Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone.”
The approach, aides said, suffused his government, which became a hothouse for ambitious, mostly conservative policy programs. They included assigning A through F grades to public schools, offering performance bonuses to government workers, privatizing many public services and, through billions of dollars in land purchases, locking in the conservation of the Everglades.
“It was this culture of creativity and intellectual curiosity,” said Brian Yablonski, who ran Mr. Bush’s policy office and remains a confidant. “It permeated everything.”
Even Mr. Bush’s time off. Inspired by Bill Gates, he sent out a request to current and former staff members for bold new ideas, serious or whimsical, and took the resulting stack of proposals with him on vacation for “think week.” (One proposal: allowing Florida towns to buy and sell water on the open market, like electricity.)
Not everyone was impressed. Democratic-leaning outsiders groused that his administration had been co-opted by conservative think tanks, like the Hoover, Cato and Manhattan institutes, whose proposals Mr. Bush openly borrowed.
“I don’t think he had any ideas of his own,” said Robert E. Crew Jr., an associate dean at Florida State University who chronicled Mr. Bush’s governorship in a 2009 book, “Jeb Bush: Aggressive Conservatism in Florida.”
But there is little dispute over Mr. Bush’s firm command of government’s smallest details. He surprised aides by reading voluminous bills in their entirety and embarrassed ill-prepared advisers with his mastery of their projects.
Allison DeFoor, a top environmental adviser to Mr. Bush, recalled having to abruptly cut short his first briefing with the new governor, about the Everglades, amid a battery of questions that he was unable to answer. Aides called the ignominious session “Black Monday.”
“I have never been brought up that short in 40 years in government,” Mr. DeFoor said.
Just as daunting: keeping pace with Mr. Bush’s crowded and sober-minded reading list. “I read more than one book at a time these days,” he said in an email. “I think it is because it’s easy to download books on Kindle.”
Colleagues try their best. After she was repeatedly asked by Mr. Bush what she was reading, Toni Jennings, one of his lieutenant governors, scaled back her consumption of page-turning thrillers by James Patterson and Harlan Coben.
Instead, she reluctantly switched over to her boss’s brand of dense nonfiction.
“Sometimes,” she conceded, “it would take me a month to get through those books.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/25...&_r=2&referrer

Landov

Michael Tomasky
05.05.14

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Jeb Bush Can’t Beat Hillary Clinton

If he gets into the 2016 race, he’ll immediately be crowned the GOP favorite. But with his poor poll numbers and no longer golden establishment ties, he’s not the most formidable.
As we know, the search for an “establishment” candidate has been on in the GOP for a while now, a savior who can rescue the party from Rand Paul or Ted Cruz. That man, of course, is Jeb Bush. Last week on Hardball, Kathleen Parker said he is definitely running. She’s a conservative columnist but not a wacko, has establishment GOP credentials and Florida ties to boot. And she spoke with the air of someone who had had this nugget leaked to her specifically so that she would go out on national TV and blurt it out.
So take the idea of a Bush candidacy seriously. He’ll get many of the biggest donors and most plugged-in operatives, and he’ll immediately be spoken of by the media as a, if not the, GOP front-runner.
So far, so normal. But here’s where things get interesting. Historically, “establishment” in this context also basically means “most formidable” and “most electable.” Look at the track record. Mitt Romney was the establishment candidate in 2012, John McCain in 2008, Jeb’s brother in 2000. Two of these three never became president, but there’s no doubt that all three were the best the GOP had to offer in their given years. Who would have run better than McCain in 2008? Maybe, possibly Romney himself. But not Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul. And 2012’s lineup besides Romney was comic relief. Any one of them couldn’t have topped 200 electoral votes. And Dubya, of course, won. (Well, “won,” but that’s a different column.)
It’s an iron law of presidential politics: The establishment candidate is, almost by definition, the most formidable candidate. Well, I guess iron ain’t what it used to be, because here’s the funny thing: Jeb Bush is not any stronger against Hillary Clinton than any of the rest of them. Establishment no longer means most formidable.
Last week’s NBC/Wall Street Journal poll was only the most recent survey to affirm it—Jeb Bush just isn’t very popular, and as for his presidential prospects, a lot of Americans seem to agree with his mother. The numbers are just hideous for him. He’s viewed more negatively than positively by 31 to 21 percent (just 21 percent positive!); he’s minus-7 on that question among independents. Some other polls in recent months have shown Jeb Bush to be seen less favorably than he was a couple of years ago—that is, as presidential chatter has increased, he’s dropped.
In general, he appears to fare no better against Clinton than any of the other Republicans, and in some polls worse. Look at some of the numbers amassed at the Real Clear Politics site. In a recent Colorado poll, Bush did worse against Clinton than Paul, Mike Huckabee, and Chris Christie. (Paul even led Clinton by five points in this poll, suggesting that the libertarians stoners are all in for him.) In a Wisconsin survey, Clinton led Huckabee by 12 and Bush and Paul both by 11. In a national Marist poll from April 15, Clinton led Paul Ryan by eight, Christie by 11, Huckabee by 13, Paul by 14, Cruz by 15, and Bush by 16. That’s right—dead last. Behind Cruz. Yes, we’re talking margin of error stuff here, but still, when they crunched the numbers, Bush was dead last.
In almost every head-to-head poll against Clinton you look at Bush is down there with the pack—a couple of points better than Marco Rubio, a couple worse than Christie, and so on. All of them are typically anywhere from eight to 15 points behind her.
Bush doesn’t have problems just against Clinton. The NBC/Journal survey found that among “animated partisans,” 58 percent liked Paul and only 44 percent viewed Bush favorably. A WMUR New Hampshire poll recently found Bush in a distant fourth place behind Paul, Christie, and Ryan. More typically in GOP primary polling, Bush is in the first tier—but he is never clearly in front, the way an establishment candidate is supposed to be.

He’s ham-handed, and he’s been terrible at generating any positive attention for himself in the last couple of years.

So what’s the problem? For one thing, Bush has real liabilities. He hasn’t been in office for eight years. He’s simply a little out of practice. His interventions over the past year—his book, for example—just haven’t done for his profile what he hoped. That statement about undocumented immigrants coming to America illegally as an “act of love” was all right by me, but I’m not a GOP primary voter. And even I thought that was kind of an odd way to put it. He’s ham-handed, and he’s been terrible at generating any positive attention for himself in the last couple of years. For a rich guy who doesn’t have to work, that shouldn’t be so hard. Remember how back in the mid-2000s, GOP operatives speaking on background used to drop quotes in the press averring that he was “the smart one”? Well, lately I’ve been thinking maybe George was the smart one.
So that’s the part of the problem that has to do with Bush himself. But the other part of his problem has to do with the party. As I’ve written before, the GOP has almost always nominated the establishment guy. But this might be a different GOP—a party in which the establishment paladins just might not be in control of things the way they once were. And if Christie is not indicted or tarnished and does run, then they’ll have two establishment candidates splitting the big donors and the non-radical voters. That would grease Paul’s path like nothing else.
So if Kathleen Parker is right and Bush does jump in, as you read all those stories crowning him the new favorite because he’s the establishment, just remember that while he may be the establishment choice, in this GOP, that doesn’t count for much.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...y-clinton.html

If this fool is the nominee I will either stay home which will take away votes in other races or just out right vote for Hitlery Clinton

there is NO way... anyone .... in Heaven or Hell will convince me to vote for this man

Sarah Palin reacts to Jeb Bush "act of love" & defends waterboarding comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqskWh1Z0cw

Michael Bloomberg Defends Hillary, Praises Jeb Bush

May 12, 2014 By Greg Campbell


As if Jeb Bush didn’t already have a problem with conservatives, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a maligned figure for the right, has come out and offered words of support for Jeb Bush, a likely 2016 Republican candidate for president.

The New York liberal who has long been dedicated to restricting gun rights in America also took a swipe at Americans who remain concerned over the Benghazi scandal, claiming that such critics are engaging in “cheap politics.”

Bloomberg claimed that both Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush would be “quality” presidents, noting,

“Hillary, you know, I’ve worked with [when she was a] senator and just as a friend, that sort of thing. I think most of the criticisms of Hillary are totally unfounded — you can maybe disagree with her policies, but what’d you expect her to do in Benghazi? I mean, it’s that kind of cheap politics which I don’t like. She’s very competent.”

Bloomberg gushed about Bush’s qualifications on education and immigration, a sore subject for conservatives who took issue with his announcement that immigrating illegally was “an act of love.”

“Jeb’s on the board of the [Bloomberg] Foundation,” Bloomberg said. “I think he did a very good job on education in Florida. He’s good on education. He’s good on immigration, and he’s had the courage to stand up.”

“I have no idea whether she’s going to run or he’ll run,” Bloomberg continued. “If the public had the choice between those two, I think there’s two quality people. And they’re very different … they just have very different views of what government is … [and] criticizing Jeb for some things is just as unfair as criticizing Hillary for some of these things.”

Bloomberg has served as a thorn in the side of Tea Partiers and conservatives for decades. At a time when the radicalized Democrat Party rants and raves against the influence of money in campaigns and elections, these same liberals happily accept millions of dollars from big donors like Bloomberg.

Last month, Bloomberg pledged $50 million to help promote anti-gun rights measures across the country. Bloomberg’s main area of focus has long been the restriction of gun rights, but has also earned ire for his continued efforts to ban the sale of food items he has deemed unhealthy.

Bloomberg’s kind words for Jeb Bush creates a problem for the moderate Republican who has largely been rejected by conservatives as being too liberal at a time when America needs a president dedicated to conservative principles.


http://www.tpnn.com/2014/05/12/micha...ises-jeb-bush/