Time for Jeb! to Go

Last updated on: October 8, 2015 at 9:42 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Time for Jeb! to Go 2015-10-08T21:42:12-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Jeb Bush is a decent man, a conservative man, and the wrong man. Mr. Bush is taking up money, attention, and time that should go to a candidate who is a better fit for the times and the party. The Bush family has served the Republican Party in many roles and will keep doing so as George P. Bush begins his career in Texas, but for this generation the Bush family should step back.

Jeb Bush does not have to drop out, but he should drop out for the good of the Party.

Scott Walker was a “man of destiny” until he was not. Candidates can go quickly, but people keep cutting Bush slack. He keeps being polled against Clinton even though in national polls Bush is often fifth in the GOP race. Other than establishment support (read $) Jeb has little going for him and winning with money is a great way to split the party.

He is likeable, but has a charisma deficit, lovable but nerdy like Bert on Sesame Street. If there is nothing wrong with Jeb Bush, there is nothing right with him. Conservatives never look for a superstar. We distrust the overly smooth as a potential demagogue and tyrant, but Mr. Bush takes a lack of dynamism a stop too far. He is bad on screen, tedious in debates, and sends me to Words-with-Friends when he does an interview. The GOP needs a decent man, but it could use an interesting decent man with ideas.

Jeb Bush has plans, but no vision and without a vision the people perish. If Obama was sometimes rhetoric without substance, Bush is substance without a vision. Why should I vote for Jeb Bush? My family has been in the GOP since Fremont pushed for Free Soil and Free Men, but winning for my Party is not enough. The USA needs to change to survive, because nations must always adapt to changing times. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their Party by asking Bush to go for the good of the country. Nobody can answer this question: What does Jeb Bush want?

I am not sure he knows. I am sure that if he does know it will not be big enough for this nation in this perilous time. He is a tall man with a small vision in an epic time.

America has good reason to distrust the Establishment in both parties. A Clinton-Bush election has the chance to shake the Republic by ignoring the wishes of the vast majority of Americans for change. We don’t like the way the nation is going, though we disagree on the solutions. We hate Congress. We like the President, but most don’t like the job he has done.

The time has come for change and Jeb Bush simply cannot represent change. If his problem was his last name, he might succeed, but his problem is the last decade. The relative failure of the last Bush administration, the shift of the country to the left under President Obama, none of it can be changed without passion.

Jeb Bush might endure with Establishment cash and attrition to be the nominee, but if he does parts of the Party will sit out the election or become discouraged and listless. I talk to them every day and see them on my social media feeds. These are not “extremists,” but regular folk who are tired of the big people, business, academia, media, and government, treating regular folks like fools while the establishment enriches themselves.

There is a sense in the country that nobody cares what the working person thinks or does. Jeb Bush may not be the Establishment guy he seems, but nobody will believe it. Perception isn’t reality, but perception is electoral impotence when a candidate is out of touch with the country. Even worse than electoral impotence is for Bush to defeat a deeply flawed Clinton, who may be unable to defeat any GOP candidate, only to waste four years with the same advisors, same insiders, and same policies leading the same slow decline we have seen in the last seven years.

Scott Walker is right: lost causes need to leave and Jeb Bush is a lost cause who might win a nomination only to help America lose her way. As long a Bush is in the race, he will suck up time and media attention that would never go to another candidate polling ten percent. I for one have made my choice: Bush will never get my primary vote. He is the wrong man, at the wrong time, in the wrong century. George Bush is older than his years and not in a good way: Bush III is the sequel to a sequal . . . out of ideas, out of enthusiasm, existing because the franchise name makes some money. Nothing would so become this decent man than leaving with his dignity intact for the good of his Party and the USA.

We need a man of ’15, not ’05.

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