The cries for Jeb Bush to run for president in 2016, following in both his father’s and brother’s footsteps, have been growing increasingly louder from the Right the closer we get to 2016. But now, the cries are possibly the loudest from inside Jeb’s own family.
As Jeb “nears a decision to become the third member of his storied family to seek the presidency, the extended Bush clan and its attendant network, albeit with one prominent exception, are largely rallying behind the prospect and pulling the old machine out of the closet,” reported the New York Times.
“No question people are getting fired up about it,” said Jeb Jr. to the Times. Jeb Sr. has even managed to get the blessing of his “politics-averse wife” and, while his mother still seems to be against the idea, Barbara at least “been persuaded to stop saying it so publicly.”
Possibly the biggest cheerleader for Jeb’s White House run is George W. “The former president lobbied Jeb when the two say each other in Dallas several weeks ago,” reported the Times, “but he acknowledged with a laugh that his pressure could backfire. ‘I don’t think he liked it that his older brother was pushing him,’ [George W.] told Fox News afterwards.”
If Jeb runs, not only will he have to convince the electorate that his family in no way feels entitled to the office, but also distance himself from his father and “especially … his brother,” and deal with “positions he has taken on immigration, taxes and education” that are “at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy of his party.”
Regardless of his own personal cheering section, America does not need another four to eight years of yet another Bush in the White House. Even with policy differences between Jeb and the rest of his political family, you know what you’re getting with a Bush president: more failed economic policies, more coddling of Wall Street, and more corporate handouts.
George W. pushed this country into an economic recession that we still haven’t crawled out from under yet. Things have only gotten better for the one percent under President Obama, and with a GOP-controlled White House and possibly GOP-controlled Congress, the middle class will continue to be destroyed.
