Jeb Bush, the Outstanding Governor of This Decade, Should Run for Senate
By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez's surprising decision not to run for re-election in 2010 has led former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush to seriously consider running for the seat. This is very good news for Republicans: Martinez's poll numbers have been lousy, while Bush's are very high. Bush, in my judgment, was the outstanding state governor of this decade, for reasons that Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution sets out. (His leading competitor for that title, in my judgment, is Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat.) Operating in a state where liberal newspapers, teachers' unions, and trial lawyers maintained a continual barrage of criticism, Bush and the Republican legislature produced the nation's best education reform and major changes in healthcare, while Bush himself proved masterful in handling hurricane relief. One reason for the federal government's poor response to Hurricane Katrina was that the feds were used to dealing with Jeb Bush and Florida's competent local officials; dealing with the hapless New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco was quite a different thing.
It has long been thought that Bush is temperamentally ill-suited to be a legislator, and in fact he has never been one. But he is a man of original ideas as well as impressive follow-through. As a senator he would attract national attention initially as the brother and son of presidents, but over time he would do so because of the quality of his ideas. One other thing: He is fluent in Spanish and has proven appeal to Hispanic voters. And I mean fluent. I have seen him speaking to a crowd in Miami and switching from English to Spanish and back again in the same sentence, making jokes in both languages. He once told me that he was trying to make his accent less Mexican (his wife is from Mexico, and he met her while studying there) and more Cuban.
Bush says that he will decide over the Christmas season whether he'll run for the Senate. If he does, he will probably pre-empt the field on the Republican side (as he did when he ran for governor in 1998) and will be a heavy favorite in the general election. I hope he does. Mel Martinez's decision to retire has opened the way for this gifted politician to make a contribution to national politics and public policy. And to the Republican Party, which needs to find some outside-the-box candidates if it's to have any chance to increase its numbers in Congress in 2010.
- Read more by Michael Barone.
Tags: Florida | Senate | Jeb Bush | Mel Martinez
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No More Bush-Inc
No More Bush-Inc
What is happening in Florida? Is anyone paying any attention down there? I just read that on Fox News Sunday that past President, George H. Bush, thinks that it would be good for all Americans if his other son, the former Governor of Florida, was President of the United States one day. Do any of you people get out? Florida, let me stir your kettle-of-fish with the femur-bone of reality.
“W” just successfully closed the longest-running, most-expensive frat party in the history of the world. It was so messy afterwards that they had to hire a janitor, Barac Obama, to clean up afterwards. Now the younger Bush-brother, not to be out-done, wants to book the Whitehouse for his frat pals in eight-years.
Florida, this is where you need to pay close attention. The Senate Seat that will be vacated by the Republican, Mel Martinez, is no accident. It’s a void-of-convenience for Bush, Inc. Mel is leaving it because he has been paid handsomely to step aside so Jeb can do Florida a favor. Jeb, won’t do Florida any favors.
Jeb has already used Florida as a doormat to acquire untold wealth and get his brother elected. After his term as Governor was up, he took his vastly accumulated wealth from Florida’s development lobbyist back to Texas in a tractor-trailer. These same lobbyists are the ones that are responsible for turning the “Rainbow Rivera,” a once flourishing, proud south Florida community, into the “Repo Riviera.” Now, Jeb plans to use Florida as a condom to commit rape on Lady Liberty. Do the Bushes have no shame? Is anyone in Florida using his/her top three inches?
Florida has always considered itself a “politically progressive state.” To that point, I have a progressive idea. Let’s “out-source” the soon to be vacant Senate Seat of Mel Martinez. “What do I mean by out-source?” you ask. If you haven’t been paying attention, let me fill you in on a frightening trend here in America. It’s called out-sourcing and politicians think it’s the best thing since no-term-limits. Let’s do unto them what they have been doing to the working class for decades. Let’s find someone over in India, Pakistan, or maybe even Mexico to sit in a “Virtual-Senate-Seat.” This Virtual-Senator couldn’t possibly be any more corrupt than an actual Senator. We can save millions by just letting the “Senator” telecommunicate from whatever country he’s in. Just think of the overhead we could save on perks alone. As a bonus, we could lease out the office space in the capital building and make enough money to pay the Senator’s salary, costing the people of Florida nothing out-of-pocket. When you consider that our Representatives only work 72-days-a-year, we may even clear a profit. Now, that’s what I call progressive political thinking and an idea whose time has come. While we’re on the subject of out-sourcing, let’s start a new political party, a grassroots movement if you will. We’ll call it the “Out-Source Party.”
And then there is the truth
Jeb's state is broke, has ACT and SAT scores that sweep the floor while dropout rates touch the sky, is losing population as few can afford its taxes and insurance rates, and he wants to take a Senate seat. Exactly what would be his platform..look
how I left Florida, let's duplicate this mess everywhere?
Puleez
Do your homework Repubs. Jeb Bush corruption goes way back. Google is your friend.
And Real Peace, I do love your rationale that everything is Clinton's fault as far as the Bush family goes. Now the insane Right is blaming everything on Obama. And you wonder why we call you the lunatic fringe?
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