We have had two Bush Presidencies, but now George W. Bush is promoting his younger brother, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, to run for President in 2016!
Jeb Bush would be seen as part of the Establishment Republicans, not a popular group in the extreme right wing Tea Party Movement that has hijacked the traditions of the Republican Party historically.
Jeb is not nativist like many Republicans on immigration; after all, his own wife is Mexican-American!
Jeb has never gone as far to the right as many Republicans do today, and that makes him suspect among them.
And of course, there is exhaustion over the concept of a third Bush Presidency, after twelve years of Bushes in the past 26 years, with only Bill Clinton between them, and if Jeb became President, with only Barack Obama between the two sons of George H. W. Bush.
Jeb would be a mainstream, rational choice for President, but that is not the bent of the GOP of 2014.
And Jeb has NOT been running for public office since his second gubernatorial run in 2002, and will have been out of office for ten years, by the Presidential Election of 2016. And no one ever elected President has been out of public office as long as Jeb will have been, other than those who were generals, or businessman Wendell Willkie in 1940, with the one other exception being Abraham Lincoln, who had been out of public office for 12 years when elected to the Presidency in 2016!
Jeb would bring intelligence, knowledge, and competence to the White House, much more than his brother George W. had in 2000.
But he also represents the past, and is very likely to cater to the right wing, and most certainly, would NOT be a progressive oriented President, anymore than his brother or dad.
The odds of Jeb deciding to run should be seen as 40 percent, and the chances of being the nominee is more like 30 percent, and the odds of being elected would be no more than 45 percent.
The best guess is that Jeb will decide, ultimately, NOT to run, as his own wife seems reluctant, and that is an important factor in any candidate’s decision to run.
Imagine though a scenario of Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton. Would that encourage voters to stay home or to come out in droves to vote? More likely, the latter!