Former Florida governor Jeb Bush launched a White House bid months in the making with a vow to win the Republican presidential nomination on his own merits and stay true to his beliefs — easier said than done in a crowded primary contest where his conservative credentials are set to be sharply challenged.
Bush is unquestionably one of the top-tier candidates in a large Republican field of 11 major candidates that lacks a true frontrunner. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich are among those still deciding whether to join a field that could end up just shy of 20.
For Bush, next year’s Republican contest is set to test both his vision of conservatism and his ability to distance himself from family.
Photo: Reuters
“Not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn,” Bush said on Monday, confronting critics who suggest he simply seeks to inherit the office already held by his father and brother. “It’s everybody’s test, and it’s wide open — exactly as a contest for president should be.”
Neither his father, former president George H.W. Bush, nor his brother, former president George W. Bush attended Monday’s announcement. The family was represented instead by Jeb Bush’s mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, who once said that the country did not need yet another Bush as president, and by his son George P. Bush, recently elected Texas land commissioner.
Before the event, the Bush campaign came out with a new logo — Jeb! — that conspicuously leaves out the Bush surname.
Jeb Bush sought to turn the prime argument against his candidacy on its head, casting himself as the true Washington outsider while lashing out at competitors in both parties as being part of the problem.
He opened his campaign at a rally near his south Florida home at Miami Dade College.
He said: “We are not going to clean up the mess in Washington by electing the people who either helped create it or have proven incapable of fixing it.”
That was an indirect, but unmistakable swipe at Republican presidential rivals in the Senate. Among them are his political protege, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, as well as senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul.
Paul on Monday said there is “Bush-Clinton fatigue” in the US.
“I think some people have had enough Bushes and enough Clintons,” Paul said in an interview.
Former secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton is the clear favorite in the Democratic contest, setting up the possibility of another Bush-Clinton race following her husband Bill Clinton’s victory over President George H.W. Bush in 1992.
Jeb Bush got in a jab at Clinton, saying: “The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next.”
Jeb Bush joins the current race in a commanding position in some ways, in part because of his family connections and support from the party establishment that has enabled him to raise what might be a record amount of money at this stage to support his candidacy.
However, on other measures, early public opinion polls among them, he has yet to break out, particularly in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
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