aggiehawg said:
Quote:
In a recent interview, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush expressed his enthusiastic hope that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. This statement was viewed widely as an implicit endorsement of DeSantis by Jeb. My view is that within the next six months, Jeb will make his endorsement of DeSantis explicit.
Full disclosure: I proudly served in the Presidential administration of George W. Bush, known commonly as Bush 43. For all practical purposes, I have left the Republican Party, due to its hostile takeover by the MAGA movement, whose core philosophy is the Pat Buchanan creed of xenophobia,
authoritarianism, and racism, as translated by Donald Trump. The Bushes are not in any way adherents to the MAGA creed, but they refuse to leave the one-time party of Lincoln because it is their historical inheritance.
I retain a loyalty to the Bush family, but I will not follow Jeb's lead in supporting DeSantis. I have written at length about the appallingly racist nature of the DeSantis messaging. Yet I understand fully why the Bush family, who are not in any way racist or xenophobic will be active supporters of Ron DeSantis for President in 2024.
The Bush family maintains a strong antipathy towards The Donald, which I fully share. Their repugnance of The Donald was heightened by two factors over the past decade.
The first was the abusive way in which Donald Trump treated Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential primary debates. The second was Trump's endorsement for reelection of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican primary of 2022 over George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush and former Texas Land Commissioner. The endorsement played a critical role in the Paxton victory over the Bush family political scion.
George P. Bush, 47, had been viewed as a strong Texas political prospect prior to the 2022 primary. He had actually sought to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump by entering the primary in 2021 with a video that praised Trump and did not mention his own father, grandfather, (President George H. W. Bush), or great-grandfather (Connecticut US Senator Prescott Bush). The Donald Trump endorsement was a cruel rebuff of George P., severely damaging his future political prospects.
In Ron DeSantis, the Bush family can endorse a candidate with a strong likelihood of victory over Donald Trump. Even a growing percentage of MAGA voters want to move beyond The Donald. They see him as a likely loser in view of the increasing possibility of his indictment. All this is having a deleterious impact on Trump's fundraising, and The Donald will never use his own money for a political campaign.
The major problem for DeSantis is that his racist messaging will make it difficult for non-MAGA Republican voters in blue states to support him. This group includes a substantial number of major GOP fundraisers and donors. They definitely will not support Trump, but the racist messaging of DeSantis gives them pause. By contrast, this racist messaging is a major political asset for DeSantis in the red states.
FWIW.
LINK
So essentially the Bush's are supporting DeSantis because they hate Trump and the main source of that is still how he treated Jeb and later George P. They don't love DeSantis but they prefer him to Trump and they realize he has the best chance of winning and isn't a Democrat.
I have never heard DeSantis even mention Bush's name and he may have a photo or two out there with a Bush in the frame considering Jeb was a 2 term Governor of Florida and lives there but that's about it. He has no Bush people in his inner circle or even a couple layers out from what I can tell, at least no one who is a true Bush protege. For instance technically Ted Cruz is a "Bush" guy because he got his start as a part of the 1st Bush Admin and was a big supporter back then. I don't thin anyone with a brain sees Cruz as a "Bush guy" now though I don't think Cruz goes out of his way to insult the Bush's.
I understand your skepticism on DeSantis and I view it as a good thing, you should be skeptical about every politician. They all try to present an image to you and they all have flaws. I think as you look more closely at DeSantis those reservations will be overcome as that is what happened for me. The more I hear the more I like. The more I research what he has actually done and HOW he has done it I am stronger in his corner. He has a LOT of Ted Cruz in him policy wise and he also was the rare conservative who went to Ivy League schools as an "infiltrator" and learned how the elites operate. He has been smart about how he built his career and very careful in his private life, honestly more careful than Cruz which is a damn high bar.
The biggest thing that impresses me though is he is very smart in how he chooses his battles and has a strategy to win. As I know you are an attorney I think you will find his approach fascinating, he has a deep understanding of the law and that makes him so much more effective than most politicians. He knows exactly what powers he has as Governor and what he can do and what he can't. He knows exactly how to use executive action combined with legislation to achieve his goals. He plays offense and keeps his enemies off balance but he also plays outstanding defense by not leaving himself exposed and by insisting that anyone who works for him will not leak to the press and he has zero hesitation to fire someone if they are pushing a separate agenda.
I encourage you to keep listening to him and research him, I think you will be very impressed the more you look. Realize right now you have a lot of folks trying to tear him down as well because he terrifies them. If DeSantis can do what he did in Florida to the entire country it would be a bigger "disaster" for the Left than Reagan was in 1980.
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Ronald Reagan
