http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/245004-bush-to-take-nothing-for-granted By Jesse Byrnes - 06/15/15 04:08 PM EDT
Jeb Bush formally announced his bid for the White House on Monday with a speech that sought to tie Hillary Clinton closely to Barack Obama and his policies.
“I’m a candidate for president of the United States of America,” Bush, 62, said in an address at Miami Dade College.
Bush suggested that Clinton would be untested in the Democratic primary, and that if she won her party's nomination she would represent President Obama's third term.
“I, for one, am not eager to see what another four years would look like under that kind of leadership," Bush said to roaring applause from a crowd that included his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush. "The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next.
"The party now in the White House is planning a no-suspense primary, for a no-change election. To hold onto power. To slog on with the same agenda under another name: That’s our opponents’ call to action this time around. That’s all they’ve got left," Bush said. "America deserves better."
Bush is joining an extremely crowded field of candidates pursuing the nomination, and the former Florida governor has stumbled since announcing he would explore a bid for the White House late last year.
He flubbed questions last month about the Iraq War and his brother, former President George W. Bush. And his early exploration scared off few if any potential rivals.
On Monday, he sought to right the ship by not shying away from his family's illustrious political history, but by framing himself as his own man. He told the audience he met his first president on the day he was born, and the second the next day when he went home.
Bush touched on education and school choice, issues he is known for in the state but that have caused grief for Bush among conservatives given his previous support for Common Core education standards.
“When a school is just another dead end, every parent should have the right to send their child to a better school – public, private, or charter," Bush said. “Every school should have high standards, and the federal government should have nothing to do with setting them."
“Nationwide, if I am president, we will take the power of choice away from the unions and bureaucrats and give it back to parents," he said.
Bush took on the "Obama-Clinton-Kerry team" for striving toward "military inferiority," suggesting he would step in as president to "rebuild our armed forces and take care of our troops and our veterans."
He also took aim at Obama's recent overtures toward Cuba, as the United States moves to normalize relations with the Communist island government after five decades apart.
“We don't need a glorified tourist to go to Havana in support of a failed Cuba," Bush said to applause from an audience that included Cuban-Americans. “We need an American president to go to Havana in solidarity with a free Cuban people, and I am ready to be that president."
