Bush Is Not A Word; It Is a Sentence

Yesterday, long past his shelf-date, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush tweeted:

I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States: https://t.co/luY4lCF2cA.

— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) December 16, 2014

Jebbie said he came to the decision after spending Thanksgiving with his (Smoking Gun-famous) family.

And so, with this bland, mayonnaise-like announcement, the 2016 Goat Rodeo–er–presidential election cycle begins in earnest.  Jeb, the Smart Bush^®  , is duller than his daddy and with none of Dubya’s faux pas and flubs to keep us on the edge of our seats. We have two years of yawning to look forward to and, yes, I think he could win.

On the bright side, Jeb’s announcement kills off the Willard 3-Peat movement.

In the old days, I would consider Bush to be the favorite to win his party’s nomination (“Thanks Daddy!”), but these are not the old days. Today’s wingnut is nuttier than in 2012, and one should never discount Rand Paul’s ability to suck up some oxygen, so I think that Jeb and Rand are the two to watch, two Texas scions in one cup. So to speak.

And like hawks, Wingnuttia will be watching Jeb, whom they instinctively do not trust:

• They don’t like Common Core
• They hate immigration reform

But if Willard invented Obamacare and ran away from it, I’m sure Jeb will find a way to sprint away from both his signature issues. But for us it will be fun to watch the mud-slinging in the primaries, regardless.

If he does win the primary, we can bet Jeb will have even more problems in the general election:

• Jeb carries the curse of being Dubya’s baby brother
• Jeb hasn’t held office since 2007 (when he was last in office, The Gilmore Girls was still on TV)
• And then there’s Terri Schiavo

Jeb has been busy making buckets of money through offshore investments, and hedge fund deals financed mostly through China. If income inequality is going to be an issue in 2016, Jeb will get some of the blowback for American jobs going away, and his family from profiting from it.

So for giggles let’s pretend that Jeb is the Republican nominee and that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. (Nothing is a given, but let’s pretend anyway). We can safely assume that campaign finance reform will continue its fall to irrelevance. So what will it be like to have two dynasty candidates spending unlimited dollars for the next two years on hourly advertising to reprise another Bush v Clinton election?

If this election does turn out to be between the Clintons and the Bushes (as many are predicting), then I’m betting that voters will be turning off.  If 2016 turns into which of two political dynasties will rule the country, I cannot imagine how cynical and bad voters will feel. Thus, I predict an amazingly low voter turn-out, and we know that’s how Wingnuttia wins elections so, yeah, I believe Jeb Bush could win.

By: Tengrain

Fully caffeinated with twice the sugar, unabashedly liberal. Award-winning Americans United blogger, blogs at Mock Paper Scissors, and sometimes at Crooks and Liars.

You can follow @Tengrain on Twitter, or you might see him enjoying coffee somewhere in Seattle at any given moment of the day.