Bushwhacked

Step back and take a look.  Maybe 20 or so notable Republicans either already announced candidates or actively campaigning for the Republican Presidential Nomination and still the overwhelming likely winner will be Jeb Bush. At least I think so:

Sure the Conservative, Evangelical, Conspiracy-“Patriot” Nutjobs, who are regrettably more numerous than acorns in the fall, don’t care for him much – him with his un-American compassion for south-of-the-border aliens and a Latino wife to boot – but at this point they have plenty of alternative choices.  Hell, Ted Cruz (a US Senator mind you) is ready to stand guard at the Texas border (shoulder to shoulder with Chuck Norris), not to keep out the Mexicalis, but to stop the Federal Government from an armed takeover of the Texas citizenry with the US Military’s Jade-Helm 15 Liberal coup. What’s not to love about Ted? 

Of course at this point in the election process four years ago they hated Romney as well, even as he flopped like a freshly caught bass.  Dear Jesus, the man belonged to a religious cult and wore the underwear to prove it.  Still, that didn’t nix Romney and Jeb should feel the same confidence, even as he undoubtedly chooses to begin his own gyrations on the bottom of the boat.

Why will Jeb win?  There is the money, for one thing.  Jeb may not have all the billionaires sewed up.  The Koch brothers have reportedly been winking at Scott Walker (although I feel their Libertarian bent will have them backing Rand Paul in the primaries), but they all know the Koch’s hundreds of millions of primary money is really just to adjust the lines on the playing field. In the general election they will enthusiastically stuff Jeb’s pockets with greenbacks.  Even without them now, Jeb is quietly securing the quiet big money. By the beginning of the hot season (January 2016) he will have lapped his opponents on fundraising.  That fact has been a bell weather in Republican Presidential politics to indicate the prospective winner (with the exception of 2008, when no one wanted to place a bet on a Republican victory).

Why else will Jeb win the nomination?  I believe the rest of the field will so violently vie for the Nutjobs (with plenty of in-fighting) that Jeb will be able to take his fortune and run an intense but relatively positive campaign.  That will garner him the great majority of confused Republicans and, with just a few Nutjobs in his camp; he’ll be able to stay at or near the top of every delegate count.

So what do I say to this seeming inevitability?  Oh dear preposterously naïve and gullible electorate, don’t let us be Bushwhacked again.

I’ll be perfectly honest.  I was a moderate independent the first half of my life, but as the playing field moved under my feet ever so Right while I was standing still, I now find the same attitudes I previously had place me as a Progressive Liberal.  I liked George H. W. Bush…in fact…I still do. He was bright, reasonably articulate, pragmatic, internationally experienced, a good administrator, and deserved a second term.  He made judicial use of the US Military and bent on his Party’s fiscal myopia when he had to. Best of all he was politically non-religious, despite his display of personal faith. I disagreed with him as much as not, but he didn’t lose my respect and his four years set the stage for the Clinton economic miracle by starting the repair to the damage Lord Reagan had done the previous eight.  Who could believe he would father an imbecile who would be used, because of his name, by powerbrokers and Christian fanatics to squeeze into the White House; only the fourth President in American history to win office with a minority of the popular vote.

 
Jeb Bush may be more like his father than his brother.  I don’t know and I don’t care.  It isn’t worth the debate.  What I do know is that ‘W’ Bush and the cronies that gave him his foundation will never be unconnected to Jeb.  Jeb Bush has had to actually and publically claim “I am my own man”. The fact that he has to pronounce such has the same disingenuous irony as Fox News having to proclaim that it is “fair and balanced”.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The George W. Bush years have not been fairing well as scrutiny evolves into history, and the starting point was at an historic low for modern times.  A Jeb Bush Presidency might not be as bad as his brother’s, but the age of the Rockefeller Republicans took a mortal blow with Ronald Reagan and effectively ended with the Right-wing Republican abandonment of George H. W. Bush in 1992.  The sad thing is that Jeb Bush might be elected; while it seems likely his opponents could not. The few steps forward that Obama managed to take regarding healthcare, immigration, the environment, among others, would either be stopped or thwarted as Jeb spends four years prepping for his next election.  I can only hope that in the general election of 2016 we see pictures of his brother’s face as much as his.

Who knows, maybe Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee might pull off their own miracle and snag the nomination.  Hey…how about a Cruz-Huckabee ticket, or would that be the Cruz-Huckabee-Jesus ticket?  Then we could all have some real fun next year and maybe even realign Congress. Go Cruz!!