Jeb Bush, the new Dan Quayle? [View all]

[n2doc]

By Brent Budowsky, columnist, The Hill


A longtime friend and wise political sage in Texas asked me this morning: "Brent, do you think Jeb Bush is the new Sarah Palin or the new Dan Quayle?" His question got my columnist juices flowing, and here is my take.

Sarah Palin has wit and charm, but I would never vote for her for anything, and if McCain-Palin had won in 2008 and Palin ever became president, I would either have built a bomb shelter or moved to Paris. There were so many great issues of state she knew nothing about, and she had more than one wild and crazy idea when discussing global security. Her finger on the nuclear button is a thought that makes my hair fall out.

On the other hand, after the week from hell that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has just created for himself, I am convinced that there is a great analogy between the Jeb Bush that runs for president in 2016 and the Dan Quayle that ran for vice president in 1988. Quayle was fundamentally a good guy, and a reasonably decent senator — more than was given credit for (even though I usually disagreed with him).

Bush, like Quayle, comes from a high-level family pedigree and was a respectable governor in the same way Quayle was a respectable senator. There are many matters that Bush has substantive knowledge of, but how to run for president is not among them.

This week, the Republican debates began in earnest. There were two. The first was Jeb Bush vs. Jeb Bush, which Jeb Bush lost. How many positions did he take on Iraq? Three? Four? A steady hand at the helm he was not.

more
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/242267-jeb-bush-the-new-dan-quayle