Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush isn’t on the ballot for anything this year, and keeps saying aw shucks to suggestions that he run for president. But folks are beginning to wonder if he isn’t already campaigning for a job at the White House from the flurry of public appearances and exposure he’s gotten lately.
The Sunshine State’s 43rd governor seems to have disappeared a little bit after his big reception at the National Republican Convention in Tampa in 2012, though he stays active on his twitter feed.
But lately, it’s here a Bush, there a Bush, everywhere a Jeb Bush.
First, his name is dropped by several GOP leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as a potential POTUS candidate for 2016. Then Jeb publishes a high profile piece on school choice (read: propaganda for charter schools)in the National Review to mark National School Choice Week.
Then, on Wednesday, Bush toured the Latin Builders Association’s Construction and Business Management Academy charter high school in Hialeah.
Seems like he may have a one-track mind.
State Reps. Michael Bileca, Jose Felix “One More Pepe” Diaz and Manny Diaz, Jr., and Miami-Dade School Board Members Perla Tabares Hantman and Carlos Curbelo, who is running for Congress, joined Bush on the tour of the school, which opened in 2012 as the first business charter high school opened by a business association in the United States.
Jeb is widely considered a serious contender for president in 2016. He would be the third member of the family to aspire to the highest office in the nation, after his father and his brother, who were both elected. And that could be his biggest weakness — that “dynasty” argument being used against him. The question Democrats and Republicans are already asking: Do we really want another President Bush?
When asked about it point blank Wednesday, Bush would not deny that he’s interested.
“I’m going to think about it later,” Bush told CBS 4. “I don’t wake up each day saying, ‘What am I going to do today to make this decision?’”
Bush told reporters he was “deferring the decision to the right time which is later this year” and would only do it if he could do it “joyfully” — whatever that means — and if it was right or his family, even though his own mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, has come out publicly saying that there must be other families who can sacrifice their sons and that she hopes Jeb doesn’t go there. I mean, la pobre. Hasn’t this woman had enough stress?
But the fact that he asked his mom to stop saying that sort of makes it seem like he’s at least inclined to run. So do his tweets on national issues and public fistbumps with other folks on the national Republican radar like South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who he congratulated on twitter for her State of the State address earlier this month.
And so do some of Bush’s friends when they tell Ladra that they have their fingers crossed and are strongly encouraging him to step up to that plate.
“Is Jeb Bush going to run? The nation would only be so fortunate,” Curbelo told Ladra. “No one is more prepared to reform our government and renew the American people’s trust and confidence in our political system.”
If Jeb Bush decides to run and Hillary Clinton also jumps in finally, American voters could see another Bush vs. Clinton ballot,
You gotta admit, it makes a great backstory.
Here a Bush, there a Bush… everywhere a Jeb Bush added by Ladra on
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