The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeb Bush critical of today’s GOP
Former Florida governor cites level of partisanship.
NEW YORK — Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida said his father, George Bush, and Ronald Reagan would find themselves out of step with today’s Republican Party because of its adherence to ideology and the intensity of modern partisan warfare.
“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, similar to my dad, they would have had a hard time if you define the Republican Party — and I don’t — as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement,” Jeb Bush said at a Q-andA session with reporters and editors held Monday morning in Manhattan by Bloomberg View.
“Back to my dad’s time or Ronald Reagan’s time,” he said, “they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan support that right now would be difficult to imagine happening.”
Jeb Bush’s comments help solidify his role as the Republican Party’s leading voice of moderation at a time when many in the party — particularly tea party adherents — are calling for ever-greater ideological discipline. And he continued a trend this campaign cycle of big-name presidential endorsers going off script from the campaigns they support. Jeb Bush has endorsed Mitt Romney’s candidacy.
Jeb Bush was careful to emphasize that he believed the modern-day Democratic Party was equally dug in on ideological and partisan grounds, saying, “this dysfunction, you can’t say it’s one side or another.” And he said President Barack Obama had failed to live up to his promise to be a transcendent leader, specifically pointing to failure to embrace the advice of the bipartisan deficit panel he created, known as the Simpson-Bowles Commission.
Jeb Bush stood by his assertion that he would accept a hypothetical deal — which all of the major Republican candidates including Romney rejected last year — that would allow $1 of revenue increases for every $10 in spending cuts.
He also said that he doubted any president — no matter who is in office — could do much to improve the economy given the problems elsewhere.
“I think we’re in a period here for the next year of pretty slow growth; I don’t see how we get out, notwithstanding who’s president,” he said. “We’ve got major headwinds with Europe and a slowdown for Asia as well.”
Republican leaders have accused Obama of playing a “blame game” for saying the European economic crisis was causing “headwinds” undermining the recovery at home.