A prominent Republican senator just told me that if Romney can’t win in Michigan, the Republican Party needs to go back to the drawing board and convince somebody new to get into the race.

“If Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,” said the senator, who has not endorsed anyone and requested anonymity.

The senator believes Romney will ultimately win in Michigan but says he will publicly call for the party to find a new candidate if he does not.

[snip]

It would have to be somebody else, the senator said. Who?

“Jeb Bush,” the former Florida governor.

Labels: dynastic politics, Greedy Republican Bastards, money

There’s now a concerted effort under way to rehabilitate Mr. Bush’s image on at least three fronts: the economy, the deficit and the war.

On the economy: Last week Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, declared that “there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy.” So now the word is that the Bush-era economy was characterized by “vibrancy.”

I guess it depends on the meaning of the word “vibrant.” The actual record of the Bush years was (i) two and half years of declining employment, followed by (ii) four and a half years of modest job growth, at a pace significantly below the eight-year average under Bill Clinton, followed by (iii) a year of economic catastrophe. In 2007, at the height of the “Bush boom,” such as it was, median household income, adjusted for inflation, was still lower than it had been in 2000.

But the Bush apologists hope that you won’t remember all that. And they also have a theory, which I’ve been hearing more and more — namely, that President Obama, though not yet in office or even elected, caused the 2008 slump. You see, people were worried in advance about his future policies, and that’s what caused the economy to tank. Seriously.

On the deficit: Republicans are now claiming that the Bush administration was actually a paragon of fiscal responsibility, and that the deficit is Mr. Obama’s fault. “The last year of the Bush administration,” said Mr. McConnell recently, “the deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product was 3.2 percent, well within the range of what most economists think is manageable. A year and a half later, it’s almost 10 percent.”

But that 3.2 percent figure, it turns out, is for fiscal 2008 — which wasn’t the last year of the Bush administration, because it ended in September of 2008. In other words, it ended just as the failure of Lehman Brothers — on Mr. Bush’s watch — was triggering a broad financial and economic collapse. This collapse caused the deficit to soar: By the first quarter of 2009 — with only a trickle of stimulus funds flowing — federal borrowing had already reached almost 9 percent of G.D.P. To some of us, this says that the economic crisis that began under Mr. Bush is responsible for the great bulk of our current deficit. But the Republican Party is having none of it.

Finally, on the war: For most Americans, the whole debate about the war is old if painful news — but not for those obsessed with refurbishing the Bush image. Karl Rove now claims that his biggest mistake was letting Democrats get away with the “shameful” claim that the Bush administration hyped the case for invading Iraq. Let the whitewashing begin!

Labels: Bush family, dynastic politics, Greedy Republican Bastards, incompetence

Here's what capitulation to the Republicans will get us: President Jeb Bush.

Don't kid yourself that this "National Council for a New America" is about rethinking, or even rebranding, the Republican Party. This is the greed wing, the Grover Norquist wing, of the Republican Party making a pre-emptive strike against Evita Mooselini, Bobby the Exorcist Jingles, and the rest of the Christofascist Zombie Brigade that hijacked John McCain last year and now threatens to hijack the rest of the party in the upcoming midterm elections and into 2012. And while Mitt Romney has a prominent role, the savior for the interests of the wealthy that is making the Greedmeisters get all tingly in the groin is Jeb Bush.

I've been saying since 1988 that the Bush family regards this entire country as a private fiefdom that's theirs to plunder as they wish for their family and friends. We've seen over the last eight years that it isn't just the country they see as their fiefdom, it's the entire world. Did anyone really think they would go away quietly? Greedy people don't take kindly to having land they think is theirs taken away from them, certainly not by black people they no doubt think ought to be their domestic servants.

And so they, with the help of the Greed Wing of the Republican Party, which has been seeking a candidate to represent their interests in 2012 to go up against the Christofascist Zombie Brigade's Chosen One, Sarah Palin, are already positioning the Bush Family Restoration to the Throne of the United States

When Jeb Bush left office four years ago, his public appearances were as scarce as bi-partisan man hugs.

He didn't want to upstage his successor in the governor's mansion nor his brother in the White House. Instead, he quietly cashed in by joining corporate boards and an elite speakers bureau, penned policy essays and gave infrequent interviews to conservative media.

But in recent months, as the Republican Party of Florida has grappled with a leadership vacuum, Bush's political profile has grown as fast as the national deficit.

He headlined a fundraiser for Bill McCollum's gubernatorial campaign, starred in a YouTube video touting Jeff Atwater's campaign for state chief financial officer and helped install state Sen. John Thrasher as the state party's heir apparent -- all the while looming on the sidelines of the fierce Republican Senate primary between Gov. Charlie Crist and Marco Rubio.

The capper came Thursday when, at the top of the 7 o'clock hour, right after Vice President Joe Biden, Bush made a rare network television appearance on NBC's Today Show. The intensely private Bush's interview with the overly familiar Matt Lauer rattled Florida political circles.

Was this the beginning of a Jeb juggernaut that would culminate in a 2012 presidential bid?

``My wife called me immediately and said he looked presidential,'' said Thrasher, who as the former House speaker helped Bush lay down his agenda. ``I said, `Who knows? We'll see.' I'm ready to go to Iowa any time he's ready.''

A government money market debacle unfolding in Florida is raising questions about former governor and presidential brother Jeb Bush's possible involvement in the mess.

Florida froze withdrawals from a state investment fund earlier this week when local governments withdrew billions of dollars out of concern for the fund's financial stability.

In the past few days, municipalities have withdrawn roughly $9 billion, nearly a third of the $28 billion fund (which is similar to a money market fund) controlled by the Florida's State Board of Administration (SBA). The run on the fund was triggered by worries that a percentage of the portfolio contained debt that had defaulted.

A majority of this paper was sold to SBA by Lehman Brothers. Bush, as the state's top elected official, served on a three-member board that oversaw the SBA until he retired as governor in January. In August, Bush was hired as a consultant to the bank. Lehman spokesperson Kerrie Cohen, speaking on behalf of Bush, said they had no comment and would not say when the bank had sold Florida the paper. SBA did not return calls.

Labels: Bush family, dynastic politics, Jeb Bush, the more things change the more they stay the same, Why even bother any more

Labels: dynastic politics, rant