From the WSJ Opinion Archives
THE WESTERN FRONT
Bush 44
Jeb for president? Don't write him off just yet.
He denies he's even interested, and a long list of political analysts have already written him off with the belief that the appearance of political nepotism would be too unseemly for voters to put the brother of the current president in the Oval Office. But in politics timing is everything, and as the clock advances towards 2008, things are starting to fall into place to give Jeb Bush the momentum he needs to win the White House. And this isn't contingent on Hillary Clinton emerging as the Democrats' nominee--though if she does, the path will be all the smoother for another Bush.
Let's first dispense with the idea that Jeb's biggest liability would be his last name. Since when does name recognition hurt in politics? It's true that many of this brother's political adversaries would simply cross out "George" in their campaign literature and ink in "Jeb" above it. MoveOn.org and other Democratic interest groups would find plenty of willing donors. George Soros would likely make another multimillion-dollar pledge to drive the Bushes from Washington. But then again, they did all that last time, and we aren't discussing who will challenge President Kerry.
Misunderestimation isn't enough for Jeb to win, of course. Ideas matter more in politics than having an "electable" candidate. Right now the ideas of the Bush family are ascendant. Bush 43 didn't win the White House on the coattails of his father. Name recognition didn't hurt, nor had all the contacts he'd made in politics. But the fact that Bush 41 lost to Bill Clinton in 1992 meant that George W. Bush had a particularly steep hill to climb within his own party. Republicans who stayed home to see the father lose would not have put the son over the top in 2000 unless he'd won them over first.
Before stepping out onto the national stage, this Bush generation's ideas of incrementally smaller government proved popular with voters in two large states. George W. Bush defeated Democratic incumbent Ann Richards in 1994 to become governor of Texas and was re-elected in 1998. The Lone Star State is clearly among the most conservative in the country, but Gov. Bush helped turn what was once a reliably Democratic state into one where Republicans now dominate. Jeb, meanwhile, lost a hard-fought race for governor in Florida in 1994. But he came back four years later and was re-elected in 2002, despite the residual bitterness from the 2000 presidential election and the Democrats' decision to make his defeat a priority.
With a strong string of electoral victories, why would Republicans now turn their backs on the Bushes? It certainly wouldn't be because of Jeb's record in Florida. He's been steadily amassing an antitax, bedrock conservative record over the past seven years. There's not much there that the party's base is going to hate. Indeed, before he lost in 1994, the scuttlebutt on Jeb was that he was "the conservative Bush."
Political symmetry also favors Jeb Bush. Even if President Bush manages to get some sort of private Social Security account this year, it's now becoming clear that the bulk of the reform is unlikely to come until after 2008. Bush 43 may succeed in establishing the principle of private accounts within the Social Security system, but it will likely be the next president (perhaps Bush 44) who will have the opportunity to steer the bulk of our payroll taxes into such accounts. Voters gave FDR four back-to-back terms. They may now conclude that replacing the New Deal with an Ownership Deal will take sending a Bush to the White House in three or four successive elections.
Remaking New Deal entitlements into assets individual Americans can own may become a powerful political philosophy that nudges into oblivion FDR's already dwindling coalition of union members and entitlement beneficiaries. Jeb Bush's close association to George W. would be an asset if voters embrace the Ownership Society. By 2008 we'll also likely have a national consensus on how well the democratic experiment is working in Iraq. If Americans continue to support spreading democracy as our best defense against international terrorism, Jeb's last name will also be an asset here as well.
Perhaps the most compelling reason why Jeb Bush shouldn't be written off just yet came Friday with the Labor Department's latest jobs numbers. With some 200,000 net new jobs created in July and some 3.5 million new jobs over the past two years, it's getting harder to deny we are now in the midst of a Bush boom. John Kerry's claims of a jobless recovery notwithstanding, every job lost after the dot-com crash and the 9/11 attacks has long since been replaced. True, the housing market may yet tumble. But the Fed keeps raising interest rates out of fear the economy will get too hot, not too cold. If we get three more years of solid economic expansion, voters may decide that keeping a Bush in the White House is good for their wallets. After all, the Bush tax cuts are now set to expire in the middle of the next president's first term.
Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.
