fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Bush Is Weaker Than He Appears

The "electability" argument on which the case for Jeb Bush depends falls apart on closer inspection.

Noah Millman answers my last Jeb Bush post with a strong case for a very depressing scenario:

We have every reason to believe that the most-likely choice the voters will be presented with in 2016 will be Bush versus Clinton.

I grant that this is certainly possible, but is it the most likely scenario? Consider the initial reaction to Bush’s announcement. Except perhaps for the CEOs that Bush spoke to recently and Bush family loyalists, absolutely no one is excited about the prospect of another Bush candidacy. The very idea of a Bush-Clinton match-up inspires eye rolls and groans, including Millman’s, and I would suggest that this is not an unrepresentative response. A Bush candidacy annoys and even angers a large number of conservatives for various reasons, and it offers the vain promise of “electability” without offering much else. The 2016 field will already be filled with ambitious governors, so one thing that Bush does have–executive experience in state government–won’t be nearly as important as it might have been in 2012. Millman is right that Bush isn’t a political novice. He’s much closer to being a has-been. Think of it this way: it is now longer since the last time Jeb Bush won an election (2002) than it was between his last win and his first failed gubernatorial bid (1994). By the time 2016 voting begins, he will have spent more time out of politics after leaving office than he spent as governor. Not only has he not been practicing retail politics with any regularity for more than a decade, but he is also probably much more out of touch with most voters’ concerns than he was when he was a governor.

Speculation about a Jeb Bush candidacy has gone on for so long that some of the things that have previously been identified as Bush’s “strengths” may no longer be advantages. The national political landscape has changed significantly in the last decade, and the GOP to some extent has also changed in ways that are not helpful for Bush. Many conservatives have less patience with Bush’s corporate “centrism” now than there was ten years ago. He may not have a “Mitt Romney problem,” but he has the problem of being corporate America’s favorite candidate. The politics of immigration today is more treacherous for pro-immigration Republicans. Brian Beutler may be overstating the case when he says that Obama’s executive action on immigration has doomed Bush from the start, but he isn’t wrong that being seen as a pro-amnesty politician is a bigger problem for Bush now than it would have been just a few years ago.

Bush is often lauded for his interest in education reform, but this may end up being a serious weakness in a Republican nomination fight. We can’t yet know how much of a liability his very active support for Common Core will prove to be, but polling so far hardly provides encouraging news for Bush. According to Pew, opposition to Common Core is disproportionately concentrated on the right, and there is quite a lot of opposition among both so-called “steadfast conservatives” and “business conservatives.” Maybe Bush can neutralize this issue, but at the moment it looks as if it could be a significant problem for him.

Finally, the strong chance that the Republican nominee is going to face Clinton should make it even less likely that Republicans are going to opt for a ticket led by Bush. Instead of providing a clear contrast with a stagnant party that has chosen a dynastic successor for their nominee, a Bush nomination makes the GOP appear just as sclerotic and as equally bereft of new ideas and talent as their opponents. If voters are presented with the choice between having another Clinton administration or having another one led by a Bush, there isn’t much doubt which one most Americans are going to choose and it won’t be the latter. Thus the “electability” argument on which the case for Jeb Bush depends falls apart on closer inspection, and Republicans will very much want to nominate someone they think has the ability to win. In a previous cycle under different circumstances, that might have been Jeb Bush, but this time that seems very unlikely indeed.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here