In the end, Jeb Bush couldn’t fix it.
Nor could Mommy, Big Bro, contact lenses and $150 million. The “! “ in lieu of a last name reminded voters that another Bush wanted that “Mr. President” salutation, as if it was a mere hereditary process to place another one of them in the national catbird seat.
This could have been a moot point had Jeb won his first time out when running for governor of Florida back in 1994. After all, he was considered within the family to be the “smart one”, the good son who didn’t fall into alcoholism, go AWOL while in the military and lived a straight-arrow life. But, he lost, while his brother, George W. won in Texas that same year, putting him on the fast-track to becoming the next Bush in the White House.
How different our world would have been had Jeb been the Bush to follow his dad into the Oval Office in 2000. Alas, it took him 15 years to follow up in his own campaign. But time, his brother’s dismal presidency and a guy name Donald Trump interfered with Jeb’s quest for becoming Bush III.
A comedy of errors
There were numerous head-scratchers in this campaign, such as
- Barbara Bush’s infamous pre-campaign comment that the country “has had enough Bushes”
- Jeb declaring “I am my own man” then promptly enlisted many of W’s old cronies as advisers
- His utter lack of sound-bite literacy and use of social media
- The naïve belief voters would swallow that illegals entering this country was “an act of love”
- Flip-flopping as to whether W. was wrong in sending us to war with Iraq
- Inability to hold his own in debates with Rubio and Trump
- Begging people to applaud his pithy statements
- Enlisting a slew of Bush family members in his last-ditch campaign in South Carolina
These last weeks have been like watching a car speeding off a cliff and plummeting straight down, in slow-motion. It was as if Jeb was in a time-warp, as his strategy of policy-wonking his way to electoral glory would be a slow, steady prod that would ultimately lead to victory.
Not this year, not with this electorate.
Jeb came across as a dated fixture who assumes when it was his turn, the political system would bow to the inevitability of bestowing upon him the title of the presidency. He stiff, placeholder persona on that debate stage mirrored that of his rote interactions with voters and the media. One could not help but wonder why it was again that he was running. Did he even want the friggin’ job? Was he simply expected to do so by a family that wanted to redeem itself from the debacle of the first son’s nefarious rule? Were Daddy’s and Bro’s friends and “sponsors” putting the screws to Jeb to run because they wanted back into power and to grab more taxpayer-funded programs?
The GOP voters so far have indicated they are through with been there, done that politics. Whether it will slide back and support other paid-for politicians like Rubio and Cruz, or continue on its path to nominating a bombastic billionaire who owes nothin’ to anyone, will be the stuff of our evening newscasts for some time to come.
The next act
Yet, there is one element of this scenario that has been ignored by the media. Jeb has a son, George P., aka “Jebby”, who is presently on the Texas Railroad Commission, a powerful elected position that uh, hem, “regulates” oil and gas industries in the Lone Star State. Of course, the regulation part is relative. The three-man commission is basically a government arm for these interest groups, and is known to be a springboard to higher office, as per former Governor Rick Perry, who got a career boost from his tenure there. So, they have positioned Jebby to make his political career in the state who gave his grandpa and uncle their starts, and he is expected to run for governor in a few years.
Nope, we are not done yet with Bushes. This is merely a breather. The machine that runs the family operation will take a few years off, but it is bound to return to promote a new generation of Shrubs to do its bidding. I can’t wait.
