-By Warner Todd Huston
If the Republican Party is stupid enough to hand Jeb Bush the nomination for the 2016 election for president, we will be stuck with another four years of a Democrat in the White House. ANY Democrat in the White House. Jeb can’t win and he’ll lose the entire base of the party if he becomes the nominee. His nomination will also be the last straw for most conservatives.
Bush foolishly imagines that he can overcome his disagreements with the conservative base. And his assumption might seem sensible in light of recent electoral history where the base has always dutifully fallen into line just ahead of the general election even after years of complaints. But I think that Bush misreads the level of dissatisfaction that conservatives have reached.
At a recent appearance in Myrtle Beach, SC, Bush said that he thinks all the carping conservatives are doing about yet another Bush run for the White House will go away once the nomination is had and the general election is nigh.
In SC, Bush called himself a “principled conservative” but noted that his immigration and education ideas have put him at odds with conservatives. Note that Bush imagines his ideas to be principled which means that he thinks the conservative position is not principled.
Anyway, Bush was said to have been “reaching out to conservatives” and trying to show them that he is conscious of their needs and will be *mostly* the kind of candidate they can support.
Sadly he has already started his campaign at the beginning putting conservatives on notice that he views them as a problem, not a part of his coalition.
Just like John McCain, who spent years calling conservatives names, Jeb Bush doesn’t even deserve our vote in the least.
But the biggest problem is that having yet another Bush on the ticket is a death knell to the GOP’s chances at the polls. He cannot beat the Bush name, he cannot beat the idea that he is a nod to the past, not the future, and he will never get the enthusiastic support of the base.
The latter is a big problem. After all, the Democrat Party still enjoys a larger number of registered voters and the only way Republicans can win is to excite its base and depress Democrats (not suppress them, mind you, just make them less excited to turn out to vote). Jeb will never excite GOP voters and make Democrats depressed enough to stay home.
Finally, for many conservatives–and I am one of them–a Jeb Bush nomination will preclude a vote for the Republican Party for the 20126 presidential election. In fact, many will call it quits with the GOP and the party will never again be able to build a winning coalition. Media mogul Glenn Beck won’t be the last one to announce that he is quitting the GOP.
For me, I will never, ever vote for Jeb Bush. Even if he is the nominee. Even if he is going up against Hillary. Even if Communist Elizabeth Warren is the Democrats’ nominee.
Jeb Bush started his campaign telling me that he thinks I am a problem, that he doesn’t want my support, that he wants me to get lost. And so, for him, I gladly oblige. Just like I did for John McCain. And I am not alone.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing news, opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that wrote articles on U.S. history for several American history magazines. Huston is a featured writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Breitbart News, and he appears on such sites as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, Wizbang.com, and many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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