Washington Post (Editorial)
June 15, 2015
“I
AM not going to change who I am,” Jeb Bush declared last week, in the
run-up to the official kickoff of his presidential campaign on Monday.
Mr. Bush couldn’t escape
his most glaring personal detail — his last name — even if he wanted
to. Yet for all the recent talk of family baggage and a stumbling start
to his 2016 effort, Mr. Bush has a good shot at winning the Republican
presidential nomination, because he is a strong
conservative former swing-state governor, and of winning the general
election after that, because he is the Republican presidential candidate
who so far seems most interested in actually governing. It is on these
and other relevant characteristics — not his
name — that voters should judge him.
In
his Monday announcement speech, Mr. Bush pitched himself as an
accomplished executive responsible for a raft of conservative reforms in
Florida, his adopted home. “We
will get back on the side of free enterprise and free people,” he said.
“I know we can fix this. Because I’ve done it.”
Mr.
Bush’s record has a lot that many Republicans should like. He cut
taxes, slashed the state workforce and enacted a school voucher program.
He ended affirmative action
at state universities and approved a “stand your ground” justifiable
homicide law, a policy that’s appealing to those ideologically committed
to expansive gun rights. Mr. Bush has not traded in his conservative
card since, though it has meant falling behind
the times on issues such as gay marriage, which he firmly opposes.
On
economic policy, he promised 4 percent annual growth and 19 million new
jobs Monday, a pledge that circumstances might have some say over. He
proposed a familiar GOP
formula to deliver such growth: less regulation, less spending, leaner
government and balanced budgets. On foreign affairs, Mr. Bush called for
pumping up the military and standing behind allies, putting him well
within the GOP mainstream.
Mr.
Bush’s record couldn’t get much more conservative without repelling
moderates in droves. Yet national polls show Mr. Bush struggling to pull
ahead of his top rivals
for the GOP nomination.
Part
of his challenge is simple association with his brother, who didn’t
tame federal spending to the degree many in the GOP retrospectively
demand. Mr. Bush also prides
himself on his grown-up tone, and he has held fast to policies that are
too reasonable for some elements of the Republican base. He has refused
to follow the rest of the pandering GOP herd on the Common Core,
voluntary state educational standards many conservatives
oppose for no good reason. He favors a pathway to legal status for
illegal immigrants. Adding to the list of heresies, Mr. Bush also
declined to put on Grover Norquist’s political straitjacket and sign the
Club for Growth’s anti-tax hike pledge when he was
governor.
Mr.
Bush has the time and resources to hone his operation and message. He
will have to convince GOP primary voters that conservative governing,
not conservative tantrum-throwing,
is what their party’s leader should be committed to.
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