The Jeb Bush of 1994 looked quite different, in appearance and ideology, than the man now preparing for a possible presidential run.
Then a wealthy businessman at the age of 41, Bush mounted a challenge to incumbent Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, a Democrat with a Southern drawl whose tendency to recite folksy sayings rivaled that of now-Vice President Joe Biden. Chiles narrowly won re-election by 63,940 votes, even though he refused to collect money from in-state or out-of-state political action committees. He also limited his campaign contributions to $100, an unimaginable feat in today’s political world.
Five other Republicans ran for the nomination, yet Bush emerged victorious from that field on a conservative platform that included radical reforms to taxes, education, welfare and criminal justice. In the end, Crowley Political Report, a Florida blog, chalked up Bush’s loss to “misjudgment, poor timing, [and a] failure to act quickly at crucial moments.” His running mate, state Rep. Tom Feeney, may have also had something to do with it. Chiles portrayed Feeney as a political and religious extremist (he supported prayer in schools and once co-sponsored a resolution to “dissolve” the U.S. if the federal deficit ever exceeded $6 trillion) and used his candidacy to question Bush’s judgement.
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“I will not be leading the charge to overturn the constitution on this issue,” he added.
It’s also interesting to see the degree to which Bush moderated his pitch to voters in just four years. Differing from his earlier gubernatorial run, when he railed against the “pathology” of the welfare state, Bush in 1998 eschewed the podium and presented himself as the candidate for limited government and “reasonable regulatory reform.”
