Jeb Bush Is Meaner Than He Looks [View all]

[seafan]

Jeb Bush Is Meaner Than He Looks, July 20, 2015, by Larry Sabato at Politico

(L)ike father, like son—or perhaps it’s the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Whatever cliché you prefer, one of the useful things about dynasties is that patterns emerge over time.
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Jeb Bush will prove this again. It’s an easy prediction that he’ll follow his brother and father in bushwhacking any opponent standing between him and the presidency. With the Bushes, do not take too seriously their assertions of personal sweetness.

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The Bushes have the empathetic pitch down pat, but beware the brass knuckles hiding beneath the velvet glove of their rhetoric. Jeb Bush is likely to have far more money than any other rival, especially because of his Right to Rise super PAC, which has collected $103 million already. This committee is run by the shrewd and talented Mike Murphy, who has declared he will “weaponize” Bush’s fundraising advantage.

Politics is as tough and nasty a business as you can find, and the Bushes are highly skilled at the dark art of negative campaigning. While they talk a good game about compassion, very little of it is shown to their opponents.

Take the patriarch. In early 1988, Vice President H.W. Bush was ...

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A dozen years later, when it was George W. Bush’s turn to run for president, he didn’t just follow his father’s script, he doubled down on it. The Texas governor won Iowa handily, but he lost New Hampshire by an astonishing 18 percentage points to Sen. John McCain of Arizona. On the ropes, Bush deployed one of the dirtiest political attacks in modern presidential history ahead of the February 2000 South Carolina primary. The character assassination of McCain was so extensive that The New York Times would later describe it as “a smear campaign…[which] had many in South Carolina falsely believing that Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, was a drug addict and that the couple’s adopted daughter, Bridget, was the product of an illicit union. Mr. McCain’s patriotism, mental well-being and sexuality were also viciously called into question.” While some of these anti-McCain efforts were led by so-called independent groups, there was evidence of coordination with key Bush backers in the Palmetto State and beyond.

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Naturally, all the top Republican contenders will air attack ads, many of which will be unsavory. But with by far the largest war chest, Bush will almost certainly sponsor the most. He’ll leave the pitiless parts to his surrogates and super PAC, where official ignorance of all muggings is legally required. And like his father and brother before him, he’ll attempt to eliminate his rivals with a gentlemanly smile and gracious wave.

The Bush family knows how it’s done. When you’re playing the nice guy, you can’t afford to be seen with dirty hands.

'There will be blood: Prepare for nasty Jeb Bush — but don’t expect any fingerprints'


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