Can Jeb Bush Defy the Tea Party and Win?

In the lead up to the 2012 presidential election, Mitt Romney prostituted himself to the far right of the GOP in the Republican Party nomination contest and it came back to bite him in the general election and contributed to his loss to Barack Obama.  With Jeb Bush flirting with running for president in 2016, some are wondering if Bush may try to appear more moderate during the primary contests.  The problem for Bush will be that the GOP has become much more extreme with Christofascists/Tea Party fanatics dominating the nomination process.  A column in the New York Times looks at whether such a strategy is possible given the nature of the base of today's GOP.  Here are column highlights:

Can Jeb Bush win the Republican presidential nomination while defying the most ideologically committed wing of his party?

Bill Clinton did this successfully in 1992, when he staked out conservative stands opposed by the liberal wing of his party — the so-called Sister Souljah strategy, designed to distance himself from the dogma of the left generally and from Jesse Jackson specifically.

Over the past 23 years, however, the voting public has become more politically consistent, with the Democratic left and Republican right each exerting greater influence on their respective parties, particularly in primary elections.

[O]nly 34 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of Democrats today fall into the middle range. The percentage of liberal Democrats has nearly doubled, from 30 percent in 1994 to 56 percent in 2014. The percentage of conservative Republicans has grown from 45 to 53 percent. As a result, Jeb Bush has fewer moderate Republicans to rely on as a base in his primary bid for the nomination than Clinton had among moderate Democrats in 1992.

Bush has decided to confront his party’s right wing on issues of immigration, the Common Core and same-sex marriage. The closest he has come to a Sister Souljah moment so far was on April 6, 2014, when he told a gathering celebrating the 25th anniversary of his father’s presidency that for many illegal immigrants, crossing the border “is not a felony. It’s an act of love” . . . 

Bush’s remarks set off a fury. The Associated Press reported that

Rep. Raul Labrador of Idaho accused Bush of “pandering.” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and House Speaker John Boehner said the country should enforce the “rule of law.” And conservative commentator Michelle Malkin created a new Twitter hashtag: #CancelJebBush.

The Democratic pollster Geoff Garin argued in a phone interview that a candidate seeking the Republican presidential nomination on a pro-immigration platform was like a politician seeking the Democratic nomination “as a pro-life candidate.”

This will make it difficult for Bush if the nomination fight turns into a two-person contest between Bush and an anti-immigration candidate. 

An unknown factor is how much leeway Bush has because of his wife, Columba, who is Latina. 

Recently, however, Bush has demonstrated a notable open-mindedness on social and cultural issues – a posture, generally speaking, which is anathema to the Tea Party, but advantageous in a general election.

Bush has also defied the Tea Party wing of his party on education policy. He has remained a steadfast supporter of national education testing standards under the Common Core program, despite growing, and often intense, opposition from the right. 

Bush’s strategy carries substantial risk. . . . Republicans might not be ready for a challenge to party ideology.

The question is, can Jeb Bush can be the Bill Clinton of the Republican Party? Does he have that level of political talent? And, if he does, will his party allow him to make use of it?

Bush will have his work cut out for him!  Here in Virginia, the GOP base has become ever more extreme and delusional.  Just look at the insanity of the 2013 GOP slate for statewide office.  It doesn't get much crazier than Ken Cuccinelli and "Bishop" Jackson, not to mention Obenshain.