This is great news.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s sons plans to hold a private fundraiser for insurgent GOP Senate candidate Marco Rubio next month, Rubio told Fox News. 

The active involvement of George P. Bush and Jeb Bush Jr. in the race raises the possibility that their father could endorse Rubio down the road and give his campaign added momentum against the GOP front-runner, Gov. Charlie Crist.

Jeb Bush, who has dismissed suggestions he’ll support Rubio, still is enormously popular in the state, with a recent poll pegging his approval rating at 70 percent, outshining Crist. His backing could help Rubio offset Crist’s considerable fundraising advantage. 

Crist and Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives, are facing off to fill the Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Mel Martinez. 

Governor Bush is incredibly popular in Florida still, with over 70% of Republicans in Florida saying they’d rather him than Crist. Likewise, over 50% of independent women say Jeb is a better governor.

In addition to Governor Bush, both of his sons remain quite popular in Florida and especially among conservatives, where they have been refreshingly candid in their support of small government and freedom.

Having their support in and of itself is great, but it is also pretty clearly a tacit endorsement from their dad.

This get even more momentum going in Rubio’s direction.

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Much has been made of this sensational headline over the weekend. My, my we’ve become quick to eat our own and throw Jeb Bush under the bus.

But did anyone actually go beyond the headline to consider what he was actually saying (and there is more to it than was reported)?

First, shame on those of you who’d throw Jeb under the bus for his last name. Let’s compare his record to that of his brother’s or most other so called conservatives. Bush actually cut taxes in Florida, reformed education, allowed school choice, reduced government personnel, relied on the private sector, ended affirmative action in higher education, and a host of other conservative positions. He does not just talk the talk, but he walks the walk.

So when a guy like Jeb stands up and says, “You can’t beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that,” you might want to actually look beyond his last name to what he is actually talking about.

The reaction to his statement and the sensation headline at the Washington Times proves his point. It is time to get over Reagan — not the man or his ideas, but his administration.

If you remember, Reagan ran in 1980 against Jimmy Carter and stagflation. He ran against appeasing the Soviet Union. He ran against an out of touch and out of control Washington. Guess what? Most people these days think it was Republicans who caused the current economic crisis and Republicans who dismantled Reagan’s vision of government in favor of out of control government.

When your party is so grossly connected to the present out of control Washington, it does very little good to talk about fighting Jimmy Carter’s stagflation and the Soviet Union — neither of which exist.

And yet . . . we do. We do because we do no have any worthwhile candidates right now, so we have fallen into one of the devil’s favorite traps.

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It’s a significant point that I don’t actually have to tell conservative/Republican readers who GayPatriot is talking about: they would guess from the title alone that the subject is Jeb Bush. There are a lot of people out there who think that the wrong Bush ran in 2000*.

Personally, I’m not one of them - more accurately, when it came to the GWOT I’d rather keep GWB than all of the other possibilities** - but I also suspect that it doesn’t particularly matter, anyway: 2012 is probably too soon for the Bush name to be ‘rehabilitated’ in the public arena***, 2016 will be contentious either way, and the man will be 67 in 2020. For that matter, it’s not entirely wrong to be concerned that any one family should keep getting access to the Presidency: in 2008 we were facing a situation where the name ‘Bush’ or ‘Clinton’ had appeared on a winning party ticket seven times in a row, and up until Obama won the nomination it was threatening to be eight.

Well, there’s always the Senate in 2012. Going for Nelson’s seat should provide a good deal of panic, fear, inchoate rage, and general nastiness from the Online Left: so that’s something to look forward to.

Moe Lane

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