-Caveat Lector-
http://www.msnbc.com/news/821999.asp?0si=-&cp1=1
Can Bush resuscitate Little Brother?
With the Bush family pecking order turned on its head — and the political
situation dire — George W. is out to rescue Jeb.
President Bush, left, joins his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, at a GOP
fund-raiser in June in Orlando.
By Howard Fineman
SPECIAL TO MSNBC.COM
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — “Hey, Little Brother, happy birthday,” George W. Bush
chirped into a cell phone as his driver’s Toyota bumped along the streets of
Houston. This was in early 1994, when I accompanied Bush on one of his first
trips through Texas as he prepared to run for governor. The fellow he was
talking to was John Ellis Bush — Jeb — then regarded as the Bush son most
likely to follow Dad into the White House. These days, Big Brother is
calling again. But now the subject is more urgent: rescuing Jeb from
political oblivion.
OF ALL the races in all the places across the country this fall, none
is more important to the president than getting “Little Brother” re-elected
governor of Florida in his surprisingly tight race with Democratic attorney
Bill McBride of Tampa.
Electoral College arithmetic is one reason, of course. As he
contemplates the presidential race of 2004, the president knows that Florida
again promises to be the mother of all battles — as close and contested as
in 2000. His brother’s presence in the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee was
a big help two years ago. For the Bush White House, there is no worse
nightmare than having a Democrat — let alone a shrewd lawyer like McBride —
in the governorship.
But in the Bush family, the only thing more important than politics
is family, and Jeb’s saga has turned from stellar promise to personal and
political anguish. New polls show him in a virtual tie with McBride; the
2000 election has made him the Democrats’ national Enemy No. 1; his
daughter, Noelle, is facing a humiliating public hearing on charges that she
violated the terms of her drug rehab program. Little Brother, it turns out,
wasn’t the lucky brother.
Back in the early ’90s, the smart money — and the family’s hopes —
rode with Jeb. He was the tall and lanky son (which matters to Bushes;
founding father Prescott, Ike’s golfing partner, was 6 feet 4 inches tall).
He was the son with a Phi Beta Kappa key (from the University of Texas,
through which he raced in two and a half years). He was the son who spoke
mellifluous Spanish. And he, not George, was the apple of their mother’s
discerning and ambitious eye for power.
Jeb had everything but destiny on his side. Eldest brother George had
first dibs on a state to try to call his own and chose Texas — which through
the ’80s began to rise as the base and anchor of a new, more conservative
Republican Party. Jeb, with fewer schoolboy ties to Texas, chose as his
center of operations Florida — which has turned into the San Andreas Fault
of American politics.
When they both ran for governor in 1994, the conventional wisdom was
that Jeb would win and Dubyah would lose. Jeb was an office-holder and was a
smooth campaigner. But he ran a philosophically indistinct campaign against
a once-in-a-generation Florida phenomenon, former governor (and senator)
Lawton Chiles. Meanwhile, in Texas, George W. was being schooled in the new
conservative themes, and he stuck to them in a plodding but disciplined way
to topple a complacent incumbent, Ann Richards. On election night, Barbara
Bush was reportedly more disappointed that Jeb had lost than excited that
“Georgie” had won.
When Jeb ran again in 1998, he did so as a full-bore conservative,
and he faced a weaker candidate in Buddy McKay. I covered that race, too,
and remember the Bush family flocking south to help Little Brother save
face. He did.
Since winning the White House, Bush has ordered Karl Rove, his
political consiglieri, to spare no effort to get Jebbie re-elected — even if
doing so risks creating political complications elsewhere. The Bush White
House has banned oil drilling off the coast of Florida, even while
encouraging it elsewhere. It has funneled money to the Everglades rescue
project. It has kept the Pentagon’s “Central Command” in Tampa. And Rove
recently blocked an effort by GOP farm state senators to open Cuba to
American grain shipments — a move opposed by Florida’s virulently
anti-Castro Cuban exile community. Farm state GOP candidates were furious.
Jeb nevertheless finds himself in a tight race with McBride, who is
as close to a dream candidate as the Democrats in Florida could find. He has
no Clinton baggage to speak of. He has a Southern accent (good for hunting
votes in the Panhandle). He was opposed by party liberals (also good for
hunting votes in the Panhandle.) He is a decorated Vietnam vet (ALSO good
for hunting votes in the Panhandle). Turnout won’t be a problem in the
Miami-area counties, where a “we wuz robbed” mentality still boils two years
after 2000.
Not surprisingly, Jeb seemed unsettled when asked on NBC’s “Today”
show whether he wanted to seek the White House in 2008. It’s been a much
tougher row to hoe so far than he — or anyone else — expected. The
presidency is far from his mind. He joked that he might just as well want to
become a priest as a president. (He is, in fact, a convert to Catholicism,
and a devout one). I’m not sure he was speaking entirely in jest. I know him
from interviews to be a soulful sort, given to the kind of poetical
introspection and doubt that is utterly foreign to his hard-charging,
never-look-back Big Brother.
Between now and Election Day, the president will travel to Florida at
least twice. He’s already been there 10 times since taking office. Ma and Pa
have raised money there early and often. Cabinet members have flown in and
out like so many snowbirds. Will it be enough to save Jeb? On election night
expect another Big-Little Brother call. For now, we can only imagine what
they’ll be saying.
Howard Fineman is Newsweek’s chief political correspondent and an NBC
News analyst.
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