Being rich. In the party of the rich, you would think it wouldn't be a problem, but it is.
At least, it's a problem if you're actually running for office. Jeb Bush has a Mitt Romney problem, though maybe it's not the one you think.
Well, okay, maybe he does have that problem. It's not a big jump, after all, from suggesting that maybe we ought to repeal the minimum wage to Mitt's infamous 47 percent comments. Both Jeb and Mitt seem like they're totally out of touch with average Americans who are struggling to make ends meet.
But being an out-of-touch rich guy is a problem for the out-of-touch rich guys who constitute the GOP's donor base. Remember, a lot of them were looking for alternatives to Mitt Romney in 2012, and to John McCain in 2008. And was there ever a more out-of-touch rich guy than Steve Forbes in 1996? Forbes never even got off the ground. The GOP donor base doesn't want the President to be an out-of-touch rich guy like themselves... they just want the President to make policies for the benefit of out-of-touch rich guys like themselves. But these two things don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. I'll explain why below the fold.
If you get a chance, have a look at the list of U.S. Presidents by net worth. It's telling, and it partially explains why rich guys don't exactly want other rich guys running the country.
Who have been the richest men elected to the Presidency in modern times? I'm excluding the plantation-owner class that mostly ran the country in its early years, because those Presidents had to deal with far less democracy than Presidents do today. Included among the top of the list are Teddy Roosevelt, a trust-funder worth approximately $125 million in 2010 dollars. T.R. was famous for cracking down on a lot of the sleazy business practices that had gone on in the Gilded Age in the 1890s. (William McKinley, his predecessor who served during the Gilded Age, was estimated to be worth around $1 million in today's dollars.)
There was also Teddy's cousin, FDR, worth around $60 million in today's dollars. You might remember him as the author of the New Deal. (Calvin Coolidge, famous proponent of laissez-faire economics that largely led to the Great Depression, was worth less than $1 million... even in today's dollars. And the similarly corruptible Warren G. Harding was worth around $1 million.)
Or John F. Kennedy. Kennedy's net worth is tough to estimate because most of it was tied up in his family fortune (which JFK didn't really control during his lifetime), but he was hardly a corporate hack. Or LBJ, estimated to be worth around $98 million in today's dollars, who signed the Great Society programs and the Civil Rights Acts.
Granted, there have also been some relatively poor Presidents who were reformers. Abraham Lincoln (calling him a "reformer" is an understatement) was worth less than $1 million in today's dollars, as was Harry Truman. And yes, there have been some well-off Presidents like George W. Bush who were total corporate hacks as well.
This is certainly not to suggest that Jeb Bush, if elected President, is going to be FDR. But Jeb Bush doesn't have to be FDR to make the GOP donor class distrust him. Merely being his father would be enough for that.
It's not even clear why Bush wants the job, and he definitely doesn't need it. And that's the problem with Jeb Bush, or any independently wealthy candidate for President. He doesn't need to be President. It's the same reason the Koch brothers fought like crazy to try to derail Mitt Romney's primary campaign, though they were ultimately unsuccessful in that effort.
In a corrupt system, those who are independently wealthy can afford to stay out of the muck. (Though some of them may dive in the muck anyway, but that's a different story.) When Ted Cruz says out loud that because his wife took a leave of absence from Goldman Sachs, he had to get insurance from the ACA exchange, that's a signal to the GOP donor class that Ted Cruz is not independently wealthy. I mean, sure, he has some money of his own, but the truly wealthy would not be inconvenienced by such a thing. Now, Cruz presents his own set of problems because if he doesn't become President he can just go the Sarah Palin route and become a right-wing celebrity, but what about Scott Walker? Chris Christie?
Jeb Bush may, if he becomes President, become a reliable toady for the corporate donor class, since that's what his brother did after all. But unlike somebody like Walker or Christie, Jeb can retire today if he wants to. He doesn't need the job. And that scares the donor class. He may be for sale... but he may not be. So the donor class is still looking around for somebody who they know is for sale.