Jeb Bush's unexpectedly early interest in the Republican nomination is a pundit's dream. It has already occasioned a thousand and one good tweets about his language: he will "actively explore" a bid, which, yes, haha, is funny, but it's also the phrase used by the Federal Election Commission to determine whether a candidate can raise money for the purpose of a presidential campaign.
But he's in! He's a Bush! What more do we know about him?
You'll hear that he represents the "moderate" wing of the party, the party of his father, the welcoming, inclusive, pro-immigration wing of the GOP. And you'll hear that he will undoubtedly upset conservatives because of his long-standing support of immigration reform and his equally determined backing of the "Common Core" educational standards. He will have trouble winning the nomination, the pundits say, because he is not conservative enough for a party that has fastened itself to a hard-line brand of populist conservatism whose platform resonates with dyslexic white people without college degrees.
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The political press often evaluates candidates along the conservative-to-liberal axis, and they evaluate Republican candidates along the "modernist" to "revanchist" axis. They designate as "liberal" positions which the majority of the GOP's voting base seems to oppose. Trying to apply these adjectives to Jeb Bush is like to trying to square a hexagon.
Here's another way to look at it: Bush represents the business wing of the party, which also happens to be its donor class. He is their ideal candidate.
Bush is deeply conservative. His immigration position is not designed to attract moderates; it is heartfelt, and it represents the type of Republican he's always been: a Chamber of Commerce conservative who supports results-oriented, metric-measured governing. He is anti-abortion, but he does not believe that abortion politics ought to be the centerpiece of any campaign. Like business conservatives, he supports infrastructure investment, investment in education and core science, trade, and — as David Frum, a former speechwriter for Jeb's brother, noted yesterday — an immigration policy that would benefit the owners, investors, and entrepreneurs who will donate to him.
What Jeb is not: a conservative with a cure for the chronic middle class economic anxiety syndrome that afflicts all Americans. He does not speak to those who worry that wages will decline if undocumented immigrants are allowed to work freely. His dynastic ties to the Bush family do not endear him to the proto-populist Tea Party wing of the GOP. His ties to donors and establishment figures all but disqualify him. He is not an anti-government, anti-governing conservative.
Not yet, at least.
Bush's biggest opportunity corresponds to the biggest hole in the GOP platform: its radio silence on practical economic solutions for the middle class, which, it turns out, corresponds to the biggest bread-and-butter concern that Americans repeatedly chastise Washington for not addressing.
If he can move beyond supply-side economics and invent or adopt policies that directly benefit middle class voters who aren't big savers, if he can speak to their concerns, if he can draw for us a picture for how a governing conservative president might function, then everything I've ever said about him — namely, that he's a Bush and he can't win the presidency, much less the nomination — goes out the window. If he can square THIS hexagon, and if he can get people to forget that he's a Bush, he might be able to win both.
