Jeb Bush: GOP Has Not Tried Being Pragmatic Yet!
Practicality is not, of course, the primary attribute many Republican primary voters look for in a presidential hopeful. Still, Mr. Bush noted, the viability of an unapologetically pragmatic bid has not been tested.
“Frankly, no one really knows that because it hasn’t been tried recently,” he said, prompting a round of knowing chuckles among the business executives in attendance.
Mr. Bush recognized what he had implied and quickly heaped praise on the last Republican nominee, Mitt Romney.
Republicans haven’t tried running an “unapologetically pragmatic” candidate yet? Our problem is those right-wing zealots John McCain and Mitt Romney?
To hell with Jeb Bush. I want a candidate who stands for liberty and against big government. If we get one I’ll fight for them tooth and nail. If we get Jeb Bush, sure, I’ll color the circle for him (a pointless exercise in California) as a statement against sacrificing the Supreme Court, and we’ll lose anyway.
And when we have a solid 5-4 majority to make the Constitution say whatever wise Latinas think it should say, there will be no further reason to preserve this Republic, and all bets will be off.
So, really, what could go wrong?
But really, this goes beyond personalities. There is a systematic failure here that is subverting the genius of the system that was created by the libertarians (yes, libertarians — they used to call them classical liberals) who founded this country.
Patterico (9c670f) — 12/3/2014 @ 8:53 pmi wonder if this a ruse…
trot out this blithering idiot, get the base all annoyed, then the GOPe has Mittens ride in to save the day, because he’s SO much more conservative than Jeb.
i’m not voting for either of those swine: i’ll do what i did for the choice between #CashAndCarry vs Moonbeam, and blacken both cells, so no one can “correct” my mistake down at the Registrar’s office.
not having enough guns & ammo on hand when that happens?
redc1c4 (cf3b04) — 12/3/2014 @ 9:08 pmJeb Bush is not a small government politician nor a ‘law and order’ sort.
Not only that but people expecting him to be kind of similar to the Presidents Bush are going to be disappointed if they give his statements and policies a good read.
seeRpea (2a32aa) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:03 pmGod bless the Bush family, but no, thanks.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:11 pmSay adios, Jeb.
We can’t afford squish-squish-squish, namby-pamby, namby-pamby being the flavor of the month. After all, that’s given us nothing but the Nidal-Hasan Syndrome, or a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome, in which the left has taken this society hostage, and we’ve been acting like the weary, beaten-down kidnap victims.
Although I don’t see your family name as being quite as grotesque as that of “Clinton” or “Kennedy,” I still think — as your mother said a few years ago — this nation has seen enough of the Bushes in public life.
Mark (c160ec) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:17 pmGovernment work, on either the political or bureaucratic side, holds no appeal for libertarians. Why would you want to spend your life working for government if you hate government and love freedom? Even altruism fails as a motive because libertarians view altruism with suspicion. Of course, this creates opportunity for those who see conservative politics as a means to satisfy baser, though very human, motives. That, in a nutshell, is the root cause of the systematic failure we witness day in and day out in Republican politics. It is not that our conservative leaders are stupid or corrupt; it is that despite all the election season rhetoric they simply are not conservative.
Or, to put it the modern vernacular: they are posers; we are tools. At this point, I’m not sure which is worse. This is why, for the past many months, I have argued that we should use our votes to clean the Republican house by voting for Democrats and against the posers who corrupt our party. And, of course, I don’t like being a tool.
ThOR (5d4ee2) — 12/3/2014 @ 10:42 pmRepublicans suck.
mg (31009b) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:40 pmBoooooshes suck.
This country sucks.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2014/12/02/that-moment-when-you-realize-theyre-grubering-you/
Steve57 (c4b0b3) — 12/3/2014 @ 11:52 pmRepublicans are the enablers of government sin.
mg (31009b) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:10 amRepublicans –
Round hole, square peg.
If we had a third party we could make these two parties squirm.
there’s no dignity in voting for Jeb Bush
it’s not something i would do under any circumstances
happyfeet (831175) — 12/4/2014 @ 3:02 amDitto #4, and Steve’s photo (#8) makes clear what pragmatism will come down to.
There’s a great book by Daniel Hannan, Inventing Freedom, that crystalized a lot of things for me. One “Aha!” moment was a story about Romney, pages 344-347. He took a tour of foreign countries to burnish his credentials prior to the 2012 election and an aid said something about Anglo-Saxon heritage. This was regarded as a racial and cultural slur against Obola, and the left was able to embarrass Romney. Hannan had previously described Thatcher and all I could think of was what a difference there was between Thatcher and Romney. Margaret would have taken advantage of the row to educate those who can be educated about the cultural advantages we enjoy as a result of our our “Anglo-Saxon heritage”, whereas Romney was such an ignorant fool that he conceded the point to the lefties. Romney is what we can expect from a pragmatist. But it doesn’t advance the cause.
bobathome (348c8a) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:11 amThe gentry are at peace with crony capitalism, paying protection.
Lay back and enjoy.
DNF (3b2963) — 12/4/2014 @ 8:02 amMany have thought we elected the wrong Bush brother in 2000 but JEB seems determined to prove we elected the right one. Maybe he’s getting us ready for his impending gut-wrenching party-switching announcement.
crazy (cde091) — 12/4/2014 @ 12:59 pmThe way I rad it, JEB Bush wants to be honest, and not pander, and not follow the advice of political consulants, at least on certain issues.
That’s good.
Sammy Finkelman (7e7e58) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:08 pmAn open letter to the GOP on impeachment and a new party
I know you folks in the ‘elite’ of the GOP are all fat and happy thinking you can take the base for granted. At times you even royally screw us over and expect we’ll just stick with you no matter what like good little minions.
Delusional thinking in an echo chamber can be a very dangerous combination.
So let me try and penetrate your little bubble of self delusion with a few salient facts so you can change course before it’s too late. You failed to see the warning of Romney’s defeat and you insist on screwing us over on other issue so we need to read you the riot act.
The next election is a bit of a way off, so now would be a good time for all of us in the party to decide what you in the ‘elite’ are going to do and what we in the base WILL do if you don’t heed our warnings.
Obama’s Impeachment
Like most lawbreakers Obama is not going to stop himself – he’s going to have to be stopped by people willing to apply the rule of law.
We know this is your attitude: “Ohhhh, don’t make me do this. Ohhhh, this is too hard” but you were elected to stop his illegal acts instead of prancing around pretending to do so.
The man said that he wanted to “fundamentally transform” (Read: Destroy) the country, so what makes you think he gives a flying fig about the law, your silly little lawsuits or even his own Commiecratic national party?
Get it through your thick skulls: Obama doesn’t care about the rule of law, your legal machinations or even the plight of his own party. He is out to “fundamentally transform” the place and if that necessitates breaking few eggs and a few laws, so be it.
So far he’s violated the rule of law and you’re fooling yourselves if you think he’s done doing so.
What’s to stop him from granting full citizenship to the invader aliens from across the border and giving himself a voting majority to rubber stamp his continued actions?
What’s to stop him from having a sham referendum on his actions so far – with 30 – 40 million extra people to tip the scales in his direction?
What’s to stop him from canceling future elections and staying in power until his turns the nation in to a smoking ruin?
Impeachment? It is to laugh, at every turn you GOP losers preemptively surrender with a no impeachment pledge and thus Obama gets what he wants with no consequences whatsoever.
At some point it’s going to dawn on you that impeachment is exactly what will have to be done
(That dawned on the rest of us years ago)
In the meantime, we have a petty little tyrant who is too overly impressed with his own intellect and you keep knuckling under whatever he’s been doing.
And we the little people in the party have you ‘elite’ GOP Losers who think you know better and listen to the other side more than we.
By the way, just so you know: they don’t have our best interests at heart, they would like to see the GOP disappear. I know that may be a shocking revelation for you, but you really need to know that.
So in their quest to destroy you (which you happily are going along with) they want an over whelming majority of voters for their Commiecratic party. And you keep playing right along.
You think you can this because there is no other place for us to go, I mean the elections are right around the corner and everyone has to pull together….
Except the elections aren’t right around the corner…………………..
A New Party
Thus is the reason for this missive.
You people in the GOP elite are very much like Obama in that there are remedies to stop your actions – in your case that would be the base leaving en mass and forming a new party
You don’t think that is going to happen and you take us for granted.
Well, right now the elections are in the distance and it would be just a good a time as any to start the process. And besides, forming a new party isn’t ‘too hard’ in comparison to the country being destroyed by the Commiecrats.
So here’s the deal – you grow some balls and stand up to Obama or we will walk.
Many have done so already (many of who are asking: dude, what took you so long?)
Without a doubt the refrain will be that a new party could lose because it’ll take a while to get up an running.
This is true, but you in the GOP elite are doing your best to bring that about anyway, so ‘what difference does it make?’
As long as you pursue the stupid strategy of incrementally giving the left whatever it wishes there is no point keeping with a sinking party, capiche?
Our friends over in the Marxist left of the DNC are rapidly destroying their own cause trying to keep in going in foundation of lies, false narratives and corruption.
Their party is dead, and we’re just waiting for the coroner to pick up the body. Sure it’s still twitching with socialist nonsense like wealth inequality and endless charges of racism, but history has shown its days are numbered.
It’s main stream media that keeps the Commiecrats on life support.
It’s keeps on slaving away propping it up with lies and distractions but that can only last for so long.
Then like a house of card the hallowed out edifice of the left will collapse in a cloud of ‘transparency’ dust.
With that future in mind, it appears that things will shake out such that you folks will become the ‘new left’ (Aside from the leftist extremists heading over to the CPUSA)
This is where a new party will come into play, made up of the people you now take for granted.
But that doesn’t have to be, you can reverse course. But you had better make it damn soon.
It’s your choice GOP, make it a good one.
Husb (13523f) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:43 pmCalm down.
kishnevi (a5d1b9) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:36 pmJeb was governor of my state, and in office was both bona fide conservative. And also good at the job of governance. Much better than the two who succeeded him. Certainly more conservative than McCain or Romney. The main argument against him is simply the fact that he would be Bush 3. And is noting the fact that to be elected as President, a conservative candidate will need to draw votes from nonconservatives a DQ for a possible candidate?
the whole idea of putting another bush in the whore house is just obnoxious
happyfeet (831175) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:49 pmi second that, happyfeet
mg (31009b) — 12/4/2014 @ 5:50 pmHusb (13523f) — 12/4/2014 @ 1:43 pm– ==At some point it’s going to dawn on you that impeachment is exactly what will have to be done (That dawned on the rest of us years ago)==
Will you please share with the rest of the class how many United States senators have to vote for conviction in an impeachment trial?
Will you please share with the rest of the class what the party breakdown of the United States senate in the 114th congress will be after Mary Landrieu loses?
Unless you’ve seen a stampede of Democrats clamoring for the president’s impeachment which is not obvious to most of us, then with all due respect maybe it’s basic math, not lack of Republican “will” that is the impediment.
elissa (779993) — 12/4/2014 @ 7:03 pmjebby drops out of the race
mg (31009b) — 12/5/2014 @ 3:09 ammitty steps in it
all elites will wither
Cruz to victory
All you Cruz haters can shove it deep.