Poll: Bush debuts in 1st, 1/3rd say he will win nomination

[DCPatriot]

Yeah! Right!

That's why the establishment fought him so!

I wouldn't say that Reagan was Establishment, but when we look back from here, his strategy of compromising with O'Neill and the Boyz in order to get "something" instead of nothing, I can understand the charge Luis made.

[raml]

Sorry I am no longer a republican according to your standards. I will  not vote for another Bush ever. We will lose if we put him as the candidate to many like me are fed up with what republicans have offered the last few elections. I will do a write in or a third party if there is a decent person running. The only way we prove to the rino republican leaders that they are lost is to leave them and I am going to do that. I am so sick of both parties neither have shown leadership that is required of a constitutional country in the past 20 years.

[Fishrrman]

I, for one, WILL NOT be voting for Jeb Bush in 2016.
I can state this with assurance and that conviction will not change.

So throw your stones at me, I couldn't care less. They'll bounce off me like water flows off a duck's back.

But then again, I enjoy something of a luxury in being able to make a statement like that. I live in Connecticut, one of the "bluest of the blue" states, and I doubt any Republican will ever win this state's presidential contest again.

So really, it makes no difference whether I vote for Jeb or not, because my vote carries no power so long as I remain here.

This doesn't mean I won't go to the polls to vote for -other- Republican candidates.
I will do that.
And perhaps also vote for a third party presidential candidate -- out of frustration if nothing else.

But...
No more Bushes.
No more Clintons.
No more American political elite dynasties.
No thank you.
Find somebody else to be the GOPe's lackey.
It ain't me, babe.

(... as he leans back in his chair and plays the famous riff from "Deliverance" on his banjo...)

[truth_seeker]

Why do you feel entitled to expect the dreaded DC power brokers to move to the right, when you can't, by the volume of your vote, force them to move to the right?

I think the answer is a delusion, that there are more of their type, than there really are. That is why they feel "entitled."

And there is ignoring the fact that an extreme conservative, could drive away two votes for every one he added.

Reagan became the establishment, after running 3 times and being elected Governor 2 times of the biggest state. And the way he governed reassured the establishment, that he was not an extremist.

That amount of experience is quite the opposite, of the Queen and the Twelve Dwarves this time around.

[andy58-in-nh]

Oh good God man.

Reagan was the establishment.

Not quite, Luis. Trust me: I was there.

Jerry Ford was the establishment. Bob Dole was the establishment. Ronald Reagan was... something else.

He was not an "outsider", as much as many of us back then, eager for a genuine conservative voice, imagined him to be. But he certainly was different; a breath of fresh air from the stale atmosphere always beloved of party insiders, fearful of those they cannot control. Or buy.

Ronald Reagan was self-made, self-taught, self-disciplined. But he was also experienced in the art of politics, success in which necessitates tactical compromise while pursuing one's strategic objectives.

Reagan spent the better part of twenty years learning how to write and speak convincingly to audiences of diverse interests. He made of himself a champion of conservative causes - while consciously maintaining a uniquely sunny, optimistic view of life that attracted even those who disagreed with him politically, but were yet drawn to his plain-spoken common sense, and also to the transcendent vision of the nation he loved and which, at the time, most Americans shared.

Today, the world is a different place. Our nation is changed, and in large measure, I'd say not for the better. I would aver that we live in truly perilous times.  Most of our politicians either do not understand the dangers we now face, or worse, privately wish the very idea of America to succumb to the designs of its adversaries. Our news media are for the most part, far worse than the politicians.

To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, the very last thing America needs is yet another election in which the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of terrible resolve.

I hope those among us who still value freedom find the strength to endorse candidates better than those to which we have become accustomed. That includes Jeb Bush, who is far from the worst, but still is in no substantial way a change from our current direction toward national oblivion.

[Lando Lincoln]

Me to! But that does NOT mean that I am not going to do everything in my power to prevent having to vote for Jeb Bush in November of 2016!

THAT, I accept without reservation.  However, if despite your efforts, Jeb is left standing...

Jeb has my vote without hesitation.

[evadR]

So really, it makes no difference whether I vote for Jeb or not, because my vote carries no power so long as I remain here.

Sounds like Maryland...although we did elect a pubbie Governor.
Not exactly sure HOW that happened.

[mystery-ak]

By the time Illinois has it's primary the candidate is usually chosen...and I to will hold my nose and vote for whoever it is..it pains me to say that but I have done it now in the last several elections..

[Lando Lincoln]

Reagan...

If only another could come along.  But we - as in the general "we" - would find a way to reject him/her.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Yeah! Right!

That's why the establishment fought him so! Still do in fact!

No, you're fantasizing.

I was around and reading OpEds too.

Podhoretz constantly attacked him for not being a conservative:

“In his first term,” Podhoretz wrote, “Mr. Reagan proved unwilling to take the political risks and expend the political energy that a real break with the underlying assumption of détente would have entailed… overwhelmed by the political present, and perhaps lured by seductive fantasies of what historians in the future might have to say about him as a peacemaker, Mr. Reagan seems ready to embrace the course of détente as wholeheartedly as his own.”

Podhoretz later accused Reagan of "appeasement" for withdrawing from Lebanon, and of having “shamed himself and the country” with his “craven eagerness” to give away America’s nuclear advantage.

Pat Buchanan, in a Newsweek piece titled “A Conservative Makes A Final Plea" urged Reagan to shun arms control agreements as a liberal “object of veneration” and “golden calf,” avoiding compromise with the left at home and the Soviets abroad during his final years in office.

Reagan himself wrote about his struggles against conservatives in his autobiography "An American Life": "When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it. "Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything. "I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.”

"If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it."

Here's what Newt Gingrich said about Reagan in the 1980's: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail. . . . President Reagan is clearly failing.” Gingrich described the 1985 Reagan/Gorbachev as “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”

That's the same Newt Gingrich who is hailed as a conservative hero for putting together the Contract With America.

Podhoretz... Buchanan... Gingrich and those "radical conservatives" who opposed Reagan in California.

Before there was Romneycare, there was Medi-Cal.

He signed more wilderness protection laws than any President before him.

You support market-based energy solutions? Reagan established the Air Resources Board to intervene in the market and fight smog.

In 1986 he signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act and gave amnesty to 2.7 million illegal immigrants.

Does the 2nd Amendment protect our most important right?

In 1991 Reagan urged Congress to pass the Brady Bill... "enact it without further delay" were his exact words.

Is the gay agenda tearing at the very fabric of our society?

In 1978, he opposed California’s Proposition 6 ballot initiative, which would’ve barred gay men and women from working in public schools, and risked what his advisers predicted would be political suicide in taking to the airwaves to denounce it. Later, Reagan would become the first president to host an openly gay couple overnight at the White House. In 1981, he defied Jerry Falwell and other evangelical leaders by nominating Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court. A moderate, she would go on, along with one of Reagan’s other nominees, Anthony Kennedy, to vote to uphold Roe v. Wade. 

I loved President Reagan.

I would crawl over broken glass to vote for him again today.

He's not the construct of conservatives. He's the construct of the whole of the people IN SPITE of conservative opposition to his style of governance and support of compromise.

So I don't fabricate memes about the man, and I don't engage in revisionist history.

History is there for any who want to look for it beyond the memes and fabrications.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Not quite, Luis. Trust me: I was there.

Jerry Ford was the establishment. Bob Dole was the establishment. Ronald Reagan was... something else.

He was not an "outsider", as much as many of us back then, eager for a genuine conservative voice, imagined him to be. But he certainly was different; a breath of fresh air from the stale atmosphere always beloved of party insiders, fearful of those they cannot control. Or buy.

Ronald Reagan was self-made, self-taught, self-disciplined. But he was also experienced in the art of politics, success in which necessitates tactical compromise while pursuing one's strategic objectives.

Reagan spent the better part of twenty years learning how to write and speak convincingly to audiences of diverse interests. He made of himself a champion of conservative causes - while consciously maintaining a uniquely sunny, optimistic view of life that attracted even those who disagreed with him politically, but were yet drawn to his plain-spoken common sense, and also to the transcendent vision of the nation he loved and which, at the time, most Americans shared.

Today, the world is a different place. Our nation is changed, and in large measure, I'd say not for the better. I would aver that we live in truly perilous times.  Most of our politicians either do not understand the dangers we now face, or worse, privately wish the very idea of America to succumb to the designs of its adversaries. Our news media are for the most part, far worse than the politicians.

To paraphrase William Butler Yeats, the very last thing America needs is yet another election in which the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of terrible resolve.

I hope those among us who still value freedom find the strength to endorse candidates better than those to which we have become accustomed. That includes Jeb Bush, who is far from the worst, but still is in no substantial way a change from our current direction toward national oblivion.

So then, what we need to do is define establishment then and now.

Before Reagan... the GOP establishment could be easily compared to a tight sphincter. Very little got in

Reagan loosened that sphincter and opened up a big tent where all were welcomed. He won decisive victories.

Today, the conservative wing of the GOP is again that tight sphincter. Reagan's big tent is gone.

So then, if the sphincter opposed Reagan and the anti-establishment was the big tent, why then do some people today make the argument that the sphincter (conservatism) is NOT the establishment but that those who are looking to raise up that big tent are?

[Luis Gonzalez]

Just as Reagan was opposed by Podhoretz, Rich Lowry now opposes Jeb.

Just as Buchanan slammed Reagan for not being sufficiently conservative, not The American Thinker says the same about Jeb.

Just as Newt Gingrich found Reagan lacking in conservative chops, today's TEA Party finds Jeb equally lacking in conservative credentials.

 Curioser and curioser.

[DCPatriot]

Don't know about anyone else, but for me the 'problem' I have with Jeb is NOT his Conservative pedigree.

It's because his name is Bush, and like it or not, the mainstream media and the Democrats have successfully made the name toxic to the Millenials and the average low-information-voter.

I even resent his entering the race for POTUS.  What kind of cocoon do they live in?  I see a display of hubris.

Let's face it, even the Matriarch, Barbara Bush, said paraphrased, "Enough Bushes.  Two are enough".

Now, as a loving parent, I can understand a mother not wishing to see her sons savaged in the press and social media.  Because that's what Jeb's future is.

All that said, my original point was...if we're 'stuck' with Jeb, I'll "crawl over broken glass" to cast my vote as a 'political prisoner' of Maryland.

It's just that it's unnecessary.  We have Scott Walker.  We have Rick Perry.  And, we have a good array of VP candidates with wide appeal.

[DCPatriot]

[Right_in_Virginia]

Why do you feel entitled to expect the dreaded DC power brokers to move to the right, when you can't, by the volume of your vote, force them to move to the right?

This makes no sense to me.   No one is talking about an "entitlement" here.

When we fight we increase the volume of our vote and in so doing we win.

Where's the fight?

[Longiron]

Ah, the sacred rallying cry of conservative Republicans chanted at the start of each primary season is finally ready for 2016:    "If Jeb ends up the nominee, I'm surely voting for him"

With eleven small words we--over and over and over-- abdicate our power and cede any leverage.  And just as assuredly we'll collectively slink off and ponder yet again why no one in the GOP cares what the heck we think. 

Well, here's an answer:  We contribute to and we vote for whomever the establishment chooses.  And we make the choice to do this not after a hard fought battle of principle and strength.  No, we make these choices and publicize them at the START!! of the primary season.

I just don't get it.  I really do not.   


 

Have a few on here who are hiding as Conservatives but in the real world are true RINOGOP establishment all the way. No name handles need to be mentioned but they are obvious!

[Luis Gonzalez]

Don't know about anyone else, but for me the 'problem' I have with Jeb is NOT his Conservative pedigree.

It's because his name is Bush, and like it or not, the mainstream media and the Democrats have successfully made the name toxic to the Millenials and the average low-information-voter.

I even resent his entering the race for POTUS.  What kind of cocoon do they live in?  I see a display of hubris.

Let's face it, even the Matriarch, Barbara Bush, said paraphrased, "Enough Bushes.  Two are enough".

Now, as a loving parent, I can understand a mother not wishing to see her sons savaged in the press and social media.  Because that's what Jeb's future is.

All that said, my original point was...if we're 'stuck' with Jeb, I'll "crawl over broken glass" to cast my vote as a 'political prisoner' of Maryland.

It's just that it's unnecessary.  We have Scott Walker.  We have Rick Perry.  And, we have a good array of VP candidates with wide appeal.

I've been doing a bit of a back and forth with Ilya Somin on Facebook on thinking about thinking. He's introduced me to two great terms/notions:

1. Rational ignorance, and
2. Rational irrationality

Rational irrationality is what drives progressives in general, and specifically to vote. They (and their minions) act, govern and vote not based in facts and history, but rather on "feel" and emotions.

It could be said that rational ignorance is (politically) the flip side of that coin, with conservatives arguing that the best way to move the GOP and their agenda forward/right, is to engineer strong negative voter drives. "Vote third Party and teach the GOP a lesson by helping the opposition win."

You can't win by losing. That's absurd.

The left is going to vilify ANY GOP candidate running against Hillary. Hell! Rubio has a boat for God's sake! So why then base OUR support on whether or not the left is going to vilify a candidate?

If we do that, we won't support anyone.

Based on their political record, there are three strong, viable candidates: Jeb, Perry and Walker, with Rubio making for a strong VP choice.

The rest are clowns.

Will the left vilify Bush?

They will... just as our press will vilify Hillary and any other left-wing candidate. However, this is what CN  is saying today about Jeb's economic record in Florida:

CNN -  When Bush left office, Florida's unemployment rate was only 3.4%, well below the national unemployment rate then of 4.4%. Florida's unemployment rate today is 5.6%, according to the Labor Department.

Bush championed tax cuts and privatized many government jobs in the state. His tax cuts were widely viewed as a benefit to the wealthy -- they went to businesses and investors. Still, Florida was flush with job growth during his tenure.

Florida's economy rode the housing and tourism boom. The state grew 4.4%, on average, during Bush's years, far ahead of the 3% national growth average during the same time, says Sean Snaith, an economist at the University of Central Florida.

~~~snip~~~

Bush left office -- he couldn't run for a third term -- before Florida's economy collapsed, along with the rest of the American economy. And by some measure, things got worse for Florida than other states.

Consider this: the U.S. economy had one month during the recession when unemployment was 10% or higher. Florida had 27 months above 10% unemployment.

The recession halted job growth for many of Florida's big businesses: construction, tourism and trade, although all three have seen healthy recoveries during past six years.

Bush had been out of office for two years before that downturn began, and it's hard to lay blame on him, says Snaith

Then there's Newsweek earlier this year on Bush's record as a education reformer... yes, the guy who supports Common Core:

Newsweek - It’s not every governor who can say the record shows his state’s schoolchildren did better because he applied conservative principles of choice and accountability.

Jeb Bush can and does.

“The aggregate improvements we’ve seen in Florida really can’t be ignored,” Marcus Winters, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado’s College of Education who has studied what Bush did there, told The Daily Signal. “The improvements were very serious and very substantial, and have been maintained over a long period of time.”

~~~snip~~~

Beginning in 1999, Bush and the state legislature implemented reforms emphasizing choice in public and private schools (including charter schools and virtual education); annual tests and grading schools and districts A through F based on test results; requiring illiterate children to repeat third grade; performance-based bonuses for teachers; and making it easier for talented applicants to gain teacher certification.

In one of the most hotly debated aspects of the changes, any student at a public school that got an F twice in four years could get a voucher to move to a different public or private school.

The initiatives came against a national backdrop of ever-increasing per-student spending and reduced class sizes—federally supported policies preferred by teacher unions—that left academic achievement relatively flat and graduation rates stagnant, Ladner and Burke argued:

Florida enacted a series of far-reaching K-12 reforms despite opposition by the teacher unions. The result was unique: The unions effectively lost control of K-12 policy in Florida.
And the state’s students went on to make the strongest gains in the nation on a test known as NAEP, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, since 2003, the first year that all 50 states used the exam.

Some conservatives regard Bush with deep suspicion because he has not renounced his early support for Common Core education standards even as they have faltered in implementation and been shaped by grants from the Obama administration.

Others see Bush’s refusal to abandon Common Core as a virtue, evidence that he would rather fix what’s broken than give up on an idea he believes in because it’s easier politically.

Put aside the ruckus in recent years over the federal government’s role in “incentivizing” the adoption of common academic standards, however, and Bush’s record in achieving what the Heritage report called “meaningful academic improvement” is the sort of story that heartens parents who harbor fears about their children’s future.

“It’s really difficult to argue that Florida is not much better educationally because of the reforms of the Jeb Bush administration,” said Winters, whose studies took him to the state for much of Bush’s second term and who also writes about education as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He added:

If minority children nationwide had made the same improvement as their counterparts in Florida, we would have closed the achievement gap nationally. It’s pretty impressive, I think. … Everything New York City was doing [in public school reform] they were doing because they were trying to emulate Florida.

Now, if I'm going to decide, for myself, who I will throw my support behind, and avoid engaging in either rational ignorance of rational irrationality when I make that choice, I'm going to look at a candidate's record and ask myself "is this the sort of thinking and style of governance that I'd like to see on a national scale?", and when I ask myself that, I can make a rational and informed choice to support Bush for the primaries.

[Luis Gonzalez]

This makes no sense to me.   No one is talking about an "entitlement" here.

When we fight we increase the volume of our vote and in so doing we win.

Where's the fight?

Where are the victories?

Someone else in this forum is fond of pointing out that the GOP has lost the popular vote in several of the most recent Presidential elections, and they blame that on the GOP nominating moderates over conservatives.

OK...

The point that those people are missing is that the national vote has gone to the more liberal candidate over the more conservative (albeit moderate) of the two. It simply is not rational to say that by the GOP nominating a more conservative candidate, people who have in the past voted for the more liberal candidate will turn around and vote for the most conservative one instead.

Then there's the second line of rational thought about this notion that the GOP is losing the popular vote because the nominees are not satisfying the conservative's palate and because of that they're staying home/voting third Party. There's no guarantee that trying to bring you back into the fold by moving right, will winn the national election. In fact, there's a very good possibility that the center left mass of independent voters will shift away in greater numbers than those numbers that will come back to the GOP fold, and the losses will be even more devastating. 

[Bigun]

Don't know about anyone else, but for me the 'problem' I have with Jeb is NOT his Conservative pedigree.

It's because his name is Bush, and like it or not, the mainstream media and the Democrats have successfully made the name toxic to the Millenials and the average low-information-voter.

I even resent his entering the race for POTUS.  What kind of cocoon do they live in?  I see a display of hubris.

Let's face it, even the Matriarch, Barbara Bush, said paraphrased, "Enough Bushes.  Two are enough".

Now, as a loving parent, I can understand a mother not wishing to see her sons savaged in the press and social media.  Because that's what Jeb's future is.

All that said, my original point was...if we're 'stuck' with Jeb, I'll "crawl over broken glass" to cast my vote as a 'political prisoner' of Maryland.

It's just that it's unnecessary.  We have Scott Walker.  We have Rick Perry.  And, we have a good array of VP candidates with wide appeal.

That is one of my MAJOR objections to him as well! And no more Clintoons either! One was quite enough!

[Luis Gonzalez]

Have a few on here who are hiding as Conservatives but in the real world are true RINOGOP establishment all the way. No name handles need to be mentioned but they are obvious!

True to form.

If you're incapable of articulating the reasons why people should support your political points of view beyond name-calling and insults in a right-wing forum, why would anyone be convinced that you could articulate them to the polity at large?

[Dexter]

A Republican is simply a supporter of the Republican party. If you vote for and support Republicans you are a real Republican. Accusing other people of being"RINOs" is ridiculous. You don't get to decide who is or isn't a real Republican based on how similar their views are to your own.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Where are the victories?

Someone else in this forum is fond of pointing out that the GOP has lost the popular vote in several of the most recent Presidential elections, and they blame that on the GOP nominating moderates over conservatives.

OK...

The point that those people are missing is that the national vote has gone to the more liberal candidate over the more conservative (albeit moderate) of the two. It simply is not rational to say that by the GOP nominating a more conservative candidate, people who have in the past voted for the more liberal candidate will turn around and vote for the most conservative one instead.

Then there's the second line of rational thought about this notion that the GOP is losing the popular vote because the nominees are not satisfying the conservative's palate and because of that they're staying home/voting third Party. There's no guarantee that trying to bring you back into the fold by moving right, will winn the national election. In fact, there's a very good possibility that the center left mass of independent voters will shift away in greater numbers than those numbers that will come back to the GOP fold, and the losses will be even more devastating.

I can't remember reading a more depressing, defeatist post.   I pray this message is not contagious.   

[Luis Gonzalez]

I can't remember reading a more depressing, defeatist post.   I pray this message is not contagious.

True to form, and lacking the ability to articulate a counter, you address the tone, not the substance of the post.

If you can't counter my post with something other than raw emotion, what makes you think that you have the answer to anything that ail this country in your arsenal?

The only defeats spelled in that post are the ones you've been experiencing.

[Luis Gonzalez]

That is one of my MAJOR objections to him as well! And no more Clintoons either! One was quite enough!

Dismissing a candidate for no other reason than their last name is about as rational as electing one because of their gender of skin color.

Jeb is a better candidate than W was.

[Right_in_Virginia]

True to form, and lacking the ability to articulate a counter, you address the tone, not the substance of the post.  If you can't counter my post with something other than raw emotion, what makes you think that you have the answer to anything that ail this country in your arsenal?

The only defeats spelled in that post are the ones you've been experiencing.

I have clearly expressed my opinion on this subject.  I even chose small words so my opinion could be understood.  But, alas, not every strategy can be a success every time.  I apologize for losing you.

As for other than "raw emotion"....    I'm not the one posting a reply in a red 50 point font.  Yeah, no raw emotion in that!   

No need to reply, our "conversation" is starting to circle--and that bores me.

Be well, Luiz.  And best of luck.