Among those who won’t be as disappointed as he appears if Mitt Romney loses his presidential bid will be Jeb Bush.
The former Florida governor is a politically savvy, wonkish CEO type who could be nobody’s vice president. But he could be in the GOPster catbird seat in 2016 if it’s an open year.
His recent comments before the House Budget Committee, the one chaired by the ambitious Paul Ryan, were indicative of someone bigger than functionaries masquerading as heavy hitters–and someone with an agenda other than blind fealty to Tea Party platitudes and partisan bashing. Bush noted the economic upside of immigration reform, the need for a bipartisan approach to tax-code overhaul and a visceral dislike for the “gotcha” environment so endemic to Washington. He is positioning himself as the GOP adult who can still pay tribute to Ronald Reagan. Not your basic right-wing panderer.
But timing is everything.
Jeb Bush knows 2012 was still too soon for a presidential ticket flyer. What he needs is at least four more years removed from the increasingly unpopular George W. Bush, who usurped his succession spot behind patriarch President George H.W. Bush. It still smacks of American royalty, if not raw entitlement, to have a third Bush vying for the White House. Especially so soon.
Moreover, Jeb Bush knows that his FCAT cheerleading and standardized-testing backlash in general is not a winner in this cycle. Neither is his name on a law authorizing “Stand Your Ground.” He needed to wait.
Meanwhile, he is supporting Romney and just endorsed Connie Mack IV to remain an active, pragmatic player. He’s always been an outspoken advocate of lower taxes and less regulation but not blindly so. He understands that it’s unsound for America to be more enamored with finance than with productivity. He has not outsourced his ideology to demagogues and hucksters and won’t hamstring himself by signing Grover Norquist’s no-tax pledge. He can address immigration issues without demonizing anyone–and he can do it in fluent Spanish.
But timing, indeed, is everything. Had he not lost that close race to Lawton Chiles in 1994–the year brother W. upset Ann Richards in Texas–he might be approaching party elder status as an ex-president. Instead, he’s likely a still politically ascendant 59-year-old assessing subplots and calculating the political scenarios yet to play out.
But there was no way 2012 would have been the year.