EARL NASH
"Like deja-vu all over again." --Berra The Yogi
>>>>> “ It’s news to YOU <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Our early warning a few
months ago in this blog about the inevitability of a BUSH-CHENEY 2012 ticket is
gradually being revealed.
In a puff
piece, profile article in the NYT today, Jeb plays it cool and coy, while
staking out his position.
As part of the
not-so-subtle PR program, the Bush family is sliding Jeb into the American
subconscious and framing him as:
"JEB, The Other (Smarter) Bush Brother."
As in...
"PORK, the other white meat."
The Bushistas scored a PR coup with a NYT caption,
which George Senior would have gladly paid ad money for:
"A
lot of Republican Party insiders think Jeb Bush could still be a serious presidential
contender in 2012."
Jeb presents himself as: a Washington
OUTSIDER, the Wise Elder with Obama The Child, bookish, more mature, new, the
party's "idea man," an advisor to Republican governor candidates, a
centrist, a favorite of the anti-establishment
crowd, "a fierce defender of his family," a do-er, not a blamer and
also: anti-drilling and pro-immigration.
Bush The Elder is positioning his son to
be the experienced Governor, who lead his state back from the destruction of
hurricanes (perhaps a sly contrast to that other brother and that other
hurricane?). Jeb will be imaged as the
"Other, Smarter, Bush son"--the moderate, common sense, Washington
outsider, who can rally the party and create unity for victory.
Could the slogan be: "BUSH-- not George--
for President"?
And, save your BUSH-CHENEY bumper
stickers!
Liz Cheney is positioning herself as a
Dick Cheney clone, only more outspoken (some say "mouthy"and "brash." and just to the right of her father, teetering on the very edge
of the political spectrum chart.
Cleverly, when Liz was scheduled to speak
recently, her dad, the much-admired Grand Old Man of the Republican Right, just
kind of showed up.
This created the
expectation that he might do it again and added to the crowd count for all of
Liz' future speaking engagements--and to the fee she could charge.
So, while the Bushistas--with the full cooperation of the MSM-- have We The Sheeple following the "Tea Party" walnut shell, the "Presidential campaign pea" is under the shell on the right, the far right, just barely on the card table.
Non-denial denials and coyness aside, by
primary time it will become a foregone conclusion that the country, dragged
into Communism by a non-citizen, a Muslim mole, who is actually the Anti-Christ,
will be ready for a major correction to the right:
BUSH-CHENEY (AGAIN) IN 2012
Bush Cheney 2012 Bumper Sticker
Are you ready for an encore?
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????
CORAL GABLES, Fla. —
For months now, Jeb Bush
has been listening as President
Obama blasts his older brother’s administration for the battered
economy, budget deficits and even the lax oversight of oil wells.
M. Spencer
Green/Associated Press
A lot of Republican Party
insiders think Jeb Bush could still be a serious presidential contender in
2012.
Political
Times: A Column by Matt Bai
Blog
“It’s kind of like a kid coming to school
saying, ‘The dog ate my homework,’ ” Mr. Bush, this state’s former
governor, said over lunch last week at the Biltmore Hotel. “It’s childish. This
is what children do until they mature. They don’t accept responsibility.”
In fact, instead of
constantly bashing the 43rd president, Mr. Bush offered, perhaps Mr. Obama
could learn something from him, especially when it comes to ignoring the
Washington chatter. “This would break his heart, to get advice that applies
some of the lessons of leadership my brother learned, because he apparently
likes to act like he’s still campaigning, and he likes to blame George’s
administration for everything,” Mr. Bush said, dangling a ketchup-soaked French
fry. “But he really seems like he’s getting caught up in what people are
writing about him.”
“I mean, good God,
man, read a book!” Mr. Bush said with a laugh. “Go watch ESPN!”
At 57, Jeb Bush
remains an intriguing figure inside his fractious party. At a moment when
Republicans are groping for an agenda beyond opposition, Mr. Bush has long been
considered one of the party’s true idea guys, someone a lot of party insiders
think could still be a serious presidential contender.
But Mr. Bush, the son
and brother of presidents, occupies just as intriguing a place within his own
family. American presidents have traditionally felt themselves duty-bound not
to criticize their successors (no matter what their successors may say about
them), which means that Jeb is the only Bush in public life who can defend the
family name.
“George isn’t going to
break that,” Mr. Bush said, meaning the ex-presidents’ code, “and if he was
asked to serve in some way, he would do it, in spite of all the ‘it’s Bush’s
fault.’ That’s just the kind of guy he is.”
Often depicted as the
most mercurial and bookish of the Bushes, Jeb, who now runs his own consulting
firm, seems at ease out of public office. He wore a loose-fitting guayabera, rather
than a suit, and responded to questions amiably, with little hint of the
prickliness that has sometime marked his interactions with reporters.
Mr. Bush said he met
Mr. Obama in 2009 when he accompanied his father, George Bush, to the White
House a few weeks after the inauguration. “He was extraordinarily kind and
gentle to my dad, which I love,” Mr. Bush said.
He gives Mr. Obama
credit for trying to spur innovation in public schools, a policy area about
which Mr. Bush is passionate, but his admiration ends there.
“By and large, I think
the president, instead of being a 21st-century leader, is Hubert
Humphrey on steroids,” Mr. Bush said. “I don’t think there’s much
newness in spending more money as the solution to every problem.”
Though he headlines
the occasional fund-raiser around the country, Mr. Bush has exercised his
political influence this year largely out of the public view. He has been
deeply involved as an informal adviser to the party’s candidates for governor,
whom he sees as the most likely sources of new Republican policy ideas. “It
doesn’t seem like it’s going to be happening in Washington anytime soon,” Mr.
Bush dryly observed.
No matter what happens
in November’s midterm elections, Republicans will have to make a difficult
calibration as they head into the presidential season. The party needs a
messenger who can keep its Tea Party-type activists energized behind an agenda
and a nominee. But Republicans will also be looking for someone who can
reposition the party nationally and make its more strident ideology palatable
to the wider American electorate.
This explains why some
influential Republicans persist in believing that Mr. Bush might still make a
strong candidate in 2012. He is a favorite of the anti-establishment crowd (he
is said to have mentored Marco Rubio,
the Senate challenger in Florida who gave the Tea Partiers a national lift),
but he is also a political celebrity with a pronounced independent streak. As
governor, for instance, Mr. Bush strongly opposed drilling in the shallow
waters off Florida, and he favors increasing legal immigration,
rather than restricting it.
Mr. Bush says he has
no interest in running, because he wants to make money for his family, but his
political allies seem to read a “for now” into such statements. “Every presidential wanna-be and every member of the
House and Senate I talk to, if you ask them who is a difference-maker in our
party, they will tell you Jeb Bush,” said Al Cardenas, the former party
chairman in Florida.
Washington wisdom —
such as it is — holds that the real impediment to Mr. Bush’s political future
would be the Bush brand, which has taken a pounding both inside the party and
out. Neither George
W. Bush nor his father ranks among the more successful presidents of
our time, to put it politely.
Jeb Bush’s admirers
insist, however, that whatever cloud existed over the name is lifting, as
memories of the last Bush era recede, replaced by a hardened conservative
opposition to Mr. Obama’s policies. And those who know Mr. Bush say he has
never concerned himself with it. “He’s the guy who cares about that the least,”
said Nicholas Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors
Association.
In fact, talking to
Mr. Bush, one senses that the problem for him as a future candidate might not
be the efficacy of the Bush brand, but rather what he might need to do in order
to transcend it. George W. Bush ran successfully for president in part by
putting some distance between himself and his father, signaling to the
Republican base that he was more a Reagan conservative than he was a “read my
lips” pragmatist.
It is harder to
imagine Jeb Bush, the fierce defender of his family, ever publicly
acknowledging his brother’s failures in a way that would enable him to come
across as a different, more capable kind of Bush. When I asked him whether Mr.
Obama had a legitimate point — whether his brother’s administration did, in
fact, bear responsibility for the country’s economic collapse — Mr. Bush paused
and, for the only time in our interview, appeared to carefully assemble his
words.
“Look, I think there
was a whole series of decisions made over a long period of time, the cumulative
effect of which created the financial meltdown that has created the hardship
that we’re facing,” he said slowly. “Congress, the administration, everyone can
accept some responsibility.”
“The issue to me is
what we do now,” Jeb Bush said. “Who cares who’s to blame?”
