Jeb Bush, of course, is no fresh face either, and the fact that a Bush or a Clinton has occupied the White House for 20 of the last 26 years is exactly what his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, had in mind when she spoke out in opposition to his candidacy in 2013.
“If you’re planning to make a legacy argument, having Jeb Bush as the nominee would complicate that,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former RNC spokesman. “But I don’t think that’s the best argument to make against Hillary Clinton.” Heye said Republicans would be better off focusing on Clinton’s record as New York senator and then secretary of state.
Bush would face his own obstacles in a Republican primary, particularly on the issues of immigration and education, where the party’s base has moved to the right in the years since he served as governor and his brother, George W. Bush, served as president. And there is little doubt that Bush’s opponents–particularly the more libertarian Paul–would argue that the country needed to move on from the Bush family just as it should leave the Clintons in the past.
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