Bush’s problem is different. Sure, private equity and offshore funds invite the inevitable Romney comparisons. But at its heart, it seems to me—having spent a couple weeks digging through his financial dealings to gauge how they’d effect his political future—Bush’s problem is really about the fact that his business people and his political people don’t seem to have done a great deal of communicating. Most of the Jeb associates I spoke to about his new fund, incorporated just two ago, learned about it from me.
The Bush team’s post hoc response has been to try to wave reporters off the story or minimize its importance by suggesting, as they did to Jonathan Martin of the New York Times, that Bush has been involved in these ventures for a long time, since shortly after he left the Florida governor’s mansion in 2007. At least as far as his private equity career is concerned, that’s not true. Public filings show it began last May.
A more effective argument, which they’ve also made, is that Bush’s business career is just a part of a long resume and that his eight years as governor are what voters will ultimately judge him on. We’ll see. The best response of all would be openness about his funds and his partners, unless there really is something damaging behind all those lawyers and holding companies—in which case maybe Romney has a clearer path to the nomination that we think.
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