Sultry Beauty on December 3, 2008 at 4:54 PM

Jeb is the best of the Bushes.

Captain America on December 3, 2008 at 6:47 PM

Correct but considering that GHW Bush was a prototypical country club Arabist Republican and GW Bush was a quasi liberal – that is not setting the bar too high.

grdred944 on December 3, 2008 at 11:34 AM

Agreed, just like we needed to move past everything Kennedy, we also need to move past everything Bush and/or Clinton. Wasn’t Obama supposed to usher in some kind of change people were demanding?

Do you live in Florida? no? then STFU. I despise political carpetbaggers who think they can come in and tell us what we need to do.

If do you live in Florida, then encourage your favorite candidate to throw their hat in the ring. Who knows? I might come to agree with you and vote for them.

I R A Darth Aggie on December 3, 2008 at 10:49 AM

I don’t live in Florida and will gladly tell you often what you need to do. That is my right as an American and certainly my right when it comes to offering opinion as it realtes to someone who could possibly be a United States Senator.

You can stick your ‘STFU’ and go crawl in a swamp.

As for Bush, the GOP has seen enough of the Bush family. I give them high marks for public service but it is time to move on.

He can’t be any worse than what we’ve had already.

Badger40 on December 3, 2008 at 11:03 AM

Does Jimmy Carter ring a bell?

The United States isn’t a monarchy.

They said the same things when John Quincy Adams ran.
A monarchy is inherited. The presidency is not.

Do you live in Florida? no? then STFU. I despise political carpetbaggers who think they can come in and tell us what we need to do.

If do you live in Florida, then encourage your favorite candidate to throw their hat in the ring. Who knows? I might come to agree with you and vote for them.

The pooling of money, power and influence in selected families is a problem. I take it as a healthy sign in our political environment that the Bush name seems to be more of a drag for Jeb than his name recognition, webs of influence etc. can easily overcome.

That’s why the Senate route seems like one of the only viable routes to Pennsylvania Avenue if he wants it. He can’t “inherit” the role (e.g., monarchies) in the next election. He can serve in another office on the national stage, develop a record on the national economy, foreign policy, etc. and then run in a competitive primary if he chooses. He will have a leg up on the opposition with his family, political and fundraising relationships. He will also be sailing into a headwind of “not Bush III!” and media bias based on his surname.

I give it a 50% chance we’ll see a Senator Bush, and 10% he’ll end up in the White House.

We’ll see in 8 years or so.

Go Jeb Go!!

I think Jeb is a good man. There are probably some more conservative possibilities for the ticket, but none of them have his name id, record as Gov., etc. In other words, he stands a much better chance of winning both the primary and the general if he wants it.

Overall, I think he governed Florida well during his tenure. I suspect he would be a more positive than negative influence in the Senate. I’m concerned about the immigration issue, but don’t think it’ll matter by the time he would be in office (Obama, McCain, & Co. will already have that problem “solved.”)

Jimmy Carter’s son ran for senate in Nevada in 2006 and lost. Although he will try again soon enough.

Elizabeth Dole was a Senator.

George I and George II of course.

There are two Udall brothers who will be in the Senate in 2009- NM and CO, who are the cousins of another Senator, Smith from Oregon who lost this year.

Joe Biden’s son is a shoe-in to become Senator from Delaware in 2010 while is pop is VP.

Hey it’s a really good thing we got rid of the monarchy, right guys? Othwerwise we’d have all the powerful families ruling us. Phew, we dodged that bullet.

So he’s accomplished something. Something very impt. And if he would defend himself on the other issues, we might find out why he did what he did.

A lot of people on this site are jumping to national possibilities. Actually, what would be really useful for the Republican Party is for the Florida Republican Party to get its act together and, among other things, keep the Senate seat presently held by Martinez in Republican hands. If Jeb Bush can help accomplish those tasks, then Jeb Bush would be doing a real service for the GOP.

But the most likely outcome on a federal level in the near future is a comprehensive immigration reform bill that will probably be worse than the one killed by hardliners in 2006, a move that resulted in them losing a boat load of seats. And when and if such a bill passes, they will blame everyone but themselves. They will blame Bush and McCain and the entire Republican party, but it will never occur to them to wonder how many people their rhetoric alienated and just to what extent they created the very situation they were trying to avoid.

Way to Go. Now once Bush has gone, you can all move on the bashing the next Bush or the next Republican nominee or whatever or whoever. And see where it leads to.

Bush III?

No, Bush 2 1/2!

The real damage done to Bush was not by moderates or even liberals, it was the right who found out that they did not run the whole country just because they had a Republican president. So when Bush did not say how high when they said jump!they joined with liberals to stab a Republican president in the back, even though there was a war on. They did not give a damn. They went off the deep end about immigration, even though it was not a major issue in either of the last two presidential elections. They went paranoid over issues like Dubai and Miers and they proved to people like me that voting Republican really does not pay off because you can not count on the hard right to do anything but make impossible demands and sit home and pout. One thing about Democrats, when push comes to shove they stand behind their candidate…not so with the right. Just look at all the socalled conservatives and Republicans who either supported Obama or could not bring themselves to vote for McCain Palin. It is not as if they just hate Bush, they are like Mikey…they hate everything. The only reason they don’t find more to complain about where Reagan is concerned is that he is dead. And therefor they know he can not run..thus he can sit atop Olympus. Otherwise we would be hearing about how he signed a bill for amnesty or raised social security rather than reforming the system or failed to shut down the Department of Eduacation like he promised, or made deals with the mad mullahs or a thousand other things they could find to complain about.