That other Bush

MrHola

Banned
What Would Jeb Do?
By S.V. Date Sunday, January 21, 2007; B01

Tuesday would have marked his sixth State of the Union address -- and it might have been his best yet. The nation is in great shape, President Jeb Bush would have reported: record tax cuts propelling the economy to greater heights; a revolutionary school-vouchers program for the first time granting low-income parents real education choices; and, five years after the capture of Osama bin Laden, the final 20,000 U.S. troops returning home from Iraq.

The president would break into his fluent Spanish and wave at his Mexican-born wife, Columba, gazing at him from the balcony. The cameras would settle on their eldest, George P. Bush, 30, and commentators would speculate on whether the dashing lawyer would soon run for Congress and carry on the Bush dynasty. Yet contrary to the best-laid plans of the Bush family, it won't be John Ellis "Jeb" Bush addressing the nation this week, all because of that disastrous November Tuesday a dozen years ago. That was the day Jeb -- the articulate and handsome workaholic, the one who as a boy spoke of his White House ambitions, and the one the Bush family counted on to avenge the Great Usurpation of 1992 -- narrowly lost his bid to be governor of Florida. Meanwhile, his older brother George W. had overcome long odds and won the Texas governorship, putting George an insurmountable step ahead of Jeb in the race for the presidency.

But what if Jeb had won the Florida governorship in 1994, been reelected and then taken the White House in 2000? How would the nation be different? What sort of State of the Union would he deliver this week? This is more than an exercise in alternative history. Because of Florida's term limits, Jeb stepped down as governor three weeks ago, but he should not be counted out of the national political scene. I've covered Jeb Bush for eight years as a state capital reporter, and I'm convinced that he remains the GOP conservative wing's best hope for a post-Iraq comeback. And his own political ambitions burn as brightly as ever. Perhaps 2012 or 2016 or -- why not? -- maybe even 2008, if things break right.

Look first to the home front. On key domestic policy issues such as tax cuts and education reform, Jeb probably would have mirrored his brother's instincts and proposals, though he might have displayed greater staying power in seeing them through. Under President Jeb, the nation still would have had large federal tax cuts, skewed heavily toward the rich -- or the "risk takers" and "job creators," in Bush family parlance. In Florida, he reduced taxes by $12.2 billion over his eight years, with more than half of that going to the wealthiest 4.5 percent of the population. That saved the average risk taker more than $1,500 a year by the time Jeb left office. And much as President George W. Bush cites tax cuts as the explanation for any positive economic results, Gov. Jeb Bush says that his tax cuts created jobs in Florida and gave us the best economy in the country. (In reality, Jeb had the lowest job-creation rate of any Florida governor dating to 1971.)

On education, Jeb quickly pushed into law a testing program, just as his brother did in Texas and later nationally through No Child Left Behind. Unlike George W., however, Jeb succeeded in introducing the nation's first statewide school-vouchers program. His willingness to delve into the nitty gritty probably would have made Jeb a radically different commander in chief than his brother during one of the most dramatic and tragic events of the Bush presidency: Hurricane Katrina.

When a spate of hurricanes struck Florida in the late summer of 2004, Jeb responded quickly. He didn't dream up schemes to give hurricane victims private-school vouchers for their children. He didn't try to privatize disaster response. Instead, he worked on obvious, sensible things: He implemented an effective and thorough evacuation, and then came in quickly with massive assistance, including search-and-rescue teams, water, ice, food, law enforcement -- in more or less that order. That leads to the key question of a Jeb Bush presidency.

In public, of course, Jeb has supported his brother's decision to invade Iraq. "It's tough," he said in a recent interview with Newsmax.com. "Thank God the president has been resolute, because it's not a popular war." But would Jeb have made the same choice? Would his state of the union speech this week have to include a lengthy discussion of a war in Iraq gone horribly wrong?

But he has grown more hawkish over time. Jeb Bush was a 1997 signatory to the Project for the New American Century, the neoconservative blueprint for a more "Reaganite" foreign policy. And his mother, Barbara, recalls in her memoirs a 1990 dinner gathering with President George H.W. Bush, their four sons and Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak. At the time, the president was pondering how to handle Saddam Hussein, who had invaded Kuwait, and Jeb (then 37) agreed with his brothers that their father should deal with Hussein harshly.

Yet Jeb did not sign on to PNAC's 1998 call to invade Iraq and depose Hussein. He also likes and respects former secretary of state Colin L. Powell; perhaps Jeb would have followed the "Powell Doctrine" in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, pursuing the Taliban and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden more zealously and using overwhelming force. With about 300,000 troops stabilizing Afghanistan, Iraq might not have become the imperative that it became under George W.

Finally, there is a chance that Jeb's more internationally minded background -- he majored in Latin American studies in college and later lived in Venezuela for two years as a young bank officer -- might have made him open to a nuanced, more even-handed foreign policy, less susceptible to his neoconservative friends urging him to deal with Iraq once and for all. It is impossible to know, but I suspect that the United States still would have gone to war in Iraq under President Jeb Bush. He would have been amenable to a compelling case from the same neocon camp that influenced George W., and Hussein's 1993 assassination attempt against George H.W. Bush could have clinched the deal.

However, once in Iraq, Jeb would have been less prone to botch the job through inattention and cronyism. As with Florida's hurricanes, Jeb probably would have considered the task of invading, occupying and rebuilding a foreign country too important to outsource to political hacks or ideologues. Jeb Bush will turn 54 next month. He has plenty of time. Given his personality and his sense of mission -- not to mention that his father and brother have already succeeded at this -- it seems impossible that Jeb would not run for president. Whether in two or six or 10 years, the United States will face the prospect of yet another Bush in the White House.

Americans will then quickly learn what we in Florida already know: This Bush not only combines his father's interest in governing and his brother's permanent campaign but also brings a relentlessness to impose his will that seems entirely his own.

WI Jeb Bush runs in 2000 as the republican candidate for the presidency? The POD would be Jeb becoming gouverneur of Florida in 1994. After all I heard he was the big hope of George sen. and Barbara. I expect he would beat McCain in the primarys like his brother, but would he make it better or worser against Gore? As a converted catholic he would probably win more catholics votes, but would he maybe drove away some evangelicans. He would propably didn´t have to deals with the "Bush is stupid"-motto, but on the oter side his opponents won´t underestimate him, like they underestimate his brother. If Jeb wins, would his policy differ from the policy of his brother? If not, would he be able to sell it better? Does he win reelection in 2004?

I can see Jeb taking Colin powell as Running Mate.
 
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