“Many things he’s said have rubbed conservatives raw,” said Morton Blackwell, a Republican National Committee member from Virginia, who said a lot of base voters were particularly suspicious of Bush’s departures from party orthodoxy on education and immigration.
Bush’s presidential hopes are complicated by multiple factors. As the son and brother of former presidents, he’s undeniably part of an establishment that is loathed in many corners of the GOP base. The party has also shifted rightward in the years since he left office under the influence of the tea party, and activists have embraced populist conservatives like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz.
But Bush, 61, is also facing an uphill battle because his time running Florida seems fuzzy to many people — particularly GOP primary voters. That’s in part because he has yet to highlight the most conservative aspects of his 1999 to 2007 governorship. And the issues that he’s been most vocal about — the Common Core education standards and immigration reform — are the positions that most infuriate conservatives.
Glenn McCall, a South Carolina RNC member, says activists in his state aren’t interested in Bush’s record.
“The successes he had in Florida — they’re not even thinking about that. They’re looking at Common Core, the Bush name and immigration.”
Whether he talks about it or not, Bush’s legacy in Florida will come under sharper scrutiny as he makes moves to launch a presidential campaign. That’s especially true if Mitt Romney mounts a third White House bid and campaigns to Bush’s right.
Bush will mark a rite of passage for Republican presidential candidates next Wednesday by addressing the Detroit Economic Club. Ahead of that speech, he’s beginning to make the kind of arguments for small government that closely echo his rhetoric from his days in Florida.
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Blackwell said he believed that it would simply not be possible for Bush to convince the base he truly has the conscience of a conservative.
“We’ve been down this road repeatedly before with members of his family who ran like they were going to be movement conservatives,” he said. “But his father broke the no new taxes pledge and his brother expanded federal programs in various directions, which conservatives didn’t like.”
Tea party supporters, who could be important in some early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina, are also worried that the former Florida governor not only does not reflect their views — but is not listening to them. They warn a ticket topped by Bush could face lukewarm Republican turnout in a general election.
Laurie Newsom, president of the Gainesville, Florida, Tea Party, noted that many in the grass roots were disappointed by the performance of Republicans who had professed their conservative fiscal bona fides — like President George W. Bush — and had unhappily accepted previous GOP nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney.
“We have held our noses and voted in ’08 and ’12,” Newsom said. “Jeb Bush — he hasn’t got a prayer. Poor Jeb has clouds hanging over his head right now.”
But Bush is warning that the Republican Party simply will not win in 2016 if it does not offer a positive vision for the future, despite boiling conservative resentment at Washington.
“We are not going to win votes as Republicans unless you lay out a hopeful, optimistic message,” he said in San Francisco. “A positive agenda wins out against anger and reaction every day of the week.”
