Jeb 2000

Philip

Donor
He likely carries Florida by a clear margin. With luck, most people never hear the phrase 'hanging chad'.
 
Well in order to understand how a Jeb 2000 would do, we should look at how Jeb 2016 ended up doing. Obviously we know that the Jeb 2016 campaign was a hilarious train wreck of a campaign which would suggest his 2000 campaign likely would not of being a particularly well run one.

Now, Jeb 2000 does have a couple of advantages over Jeb 2016, like for example his surname isn't really toxic with much of the general public like it was in 2016. He also doesn't have to worry about social media at this point which considering how incompetent he was at handling it in 2016, can only be a good thing.

However he still lacks the charisma and campaigning skills that his brother had and also he is still going to find it difficult to adjust to the national political media as he did IOTL.

As for how well he would stack up against Gore, well he would definitely lock up Florida. In fact Gore wouldn't even bother to send resources to Florida In this campaign. Instead seeing how Jeb doesn't have the same appeal to rural white southerners that his brother had, I would imagine that Gore would try to focus more resources on hanging onto the Southern states that Clinton won; states like Missouri, Arkansas and Gore's home state Tennessee. My feeling is the race would be a tossup, probably Gore having the slight advantage.
 

Philip

Donor
My impression is he'd do better in Florida and with tempermentally moderate suburbanites but worse with populist types.

You are probably right. He won the soccer mom vote in Florida.

In '98 he won 60% of the Hispanic vote in Florida (better than the 55% in the general pop). This was obviously helped by his ties to the Cuban community, so I'm not sure how well this would translate to non-Cuban Hispanic voters. I bet we see Columba on the campaign trail.

Well in order to understand how a Jeb 2000 would do, we should look at how Jeb 2016 ended up doing. Obviously we know that the Jeb 2016 campaign was a hilarious train wreck of a campaign which would suggest his 2000 campaign likely would not of being a particularly well run one.

Not sure that is a good comparison. In '16, Jeb had been out of office for a decade. Much of his team and support had moved on, especially with Rubio running.
 
Jeb running would actually be a realistic pod to get Gore to win in 2000. Bush's running an incompetent campaign and the DUI revelations are why it was so close OTL.
 
I think the advantage starts with Jeb. George ran a terrible campaign and still managed to squeak by thanks to Clinton fatigue. Jeb starts out with none of his brother's personal weaknesses. Maybe he's boring, but so is Gore. That's probably a primary media narrative of the campaign, with plenty of embarrassing attempts by both sides to break out of it. I don't know if it's fair to call Jeb a generic candidate, but let's say that at worst that's what he is. That's all a Republican needs to be to win in 2000 against Gore.
 
In this scenario, I’d expect Buchanan to pick up more votes, given Jeb’s aforementioned lower popularity with the populist right. Of course I’d expect suburbanite pickups to offset that gain overall and that he’d win 2000 in a squeaker.

I do wonder if he does worse in 2004 than Dubya. Dubya’s ‘04 re-election strategy relies heavily on using populist issues like same-sex marriage to turn out more conservative voters. I don’t know if Jeb would use the same strategy or if it would work the same way for him. Heck, there’s no guarantee he’s up against Kerry either.
 
What if Jeb Bush had won his 1994 Gubernatorial and gotten the nod to be GOP nominee in 2000 instead of his brother?

Who gets the 2000 GOP nomination if both brothers win in 1994 depends on who wins the all-important "Poppy and Barb" primary...

If it's Jeb, he probably wins in November--he has an easier time in Florida, and I don't see why he would lose any other state GW won.
 
Jeb! winning in 1994 may also change the way he governs. In 1994, he ran on a crime and punishment hardline conservative type campaign. After he lost to to Chiles, he softened his brand of conservatism and focused more on a pragmatic approach to government that brought people together. If his mandate is the more hardline in 1994, he may stick with that throughout his terms, and decide that's the best way to run for the White House.

I don't fully know what this means, but apparently Lawton Chiles attacking Jeb with this was really lethal in 1994: “My mama told me, “sticks and stones will break my bones,” but names will never hurt me. But let me tell you one other thing about the old liberal. The old He-Coon walks just before the light of day.”
 
This happened in A Giant Sucking Sound but there were large chaotic butterflies in the Republican Party throughout the 90s in that timeline. Jeb was seen as a stabilizing force for the party and the golden boy of modern conservatism.
 
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