Jeb Bush, the new Dan Quayle?

A longtime friend and wise political sage in Texas asked me this morning: “Brent, do you think Jeb Bush is the new Sarah Palin or the new Dan Quayle?” His question got my columnist juices flowing, and here is my take.

{mosads}Sarah Palin has wit and charm, but I would never vote for her for anything, and if McCain-Palin had won in 2008 and Palin ever became president, I would either have built a bomb shelter or moved to Paris. There were so many great issues of state she knew nothing about, and she had more than one wild and crazy idea when discussing global security. Her finger on the nuclear button is a thought that makes my hair fall out.

On the other hand, after the week from hell that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has just created for himself, I am convinced that there is a great analogy between the Jeb Bush that runs for president in 2016 and the Dan Quayle that ran for vice president in 1988. Quayle was fundamentally a good guy, and a reasonably decent senator — more than was given credit for (even though I usually disagreed with him).

Bush, like Quayle, comes from a high-level family pedigree and was a respectable governor in the same way Quayle was a respectable senator. There are many matters that Bush has substantive knowledge of, but how to run for president is not among them.

This week, the Republican debates began in earnest. There were two. The first was Jeb Bush vs. Jeb Bush, which Jeb Bush lost. How many positions did he take on Iraq? Three? Four? A steady hand at the helm he was not.

Then Bush accidentally appeared to announce he was running for president, a statement with great consequence for the nation and serious legal consequence for his fundraising. And then Bush flip-flopped again, retracting his announcement for president, probably after his campaign lawyers found their hair falling out!

The second Republican debate this week involved Jeb Bush vs. George W. Bush, and both Bushes lost that debate. Jeb Bush lost because he appeared incoherent, confused and duplicitous in changing his position on the major war of the last decade, and he had that deer-in-the-headlights look that Quayle had when a certain Democratic senator from Texas blasted him into orbit in a vice presidential debate. George W. Bush also lost the debate between the two Bushes because, in the end, Jeb ran away from W. faster than Dracula ran away from a cross.

As I wrote in my column in The Hill this week, this will be seen as the week when Jeb Bush lost credibility as a potential president. Whether his ample supply of donors ask for refunds or not, presidential stature is something that money cannot buy.

The big Republican winners this week were: Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), above all; Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.); Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who remains the major default candidate of the GOP establishment if the others fall, which they may well. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who has been seen berating constituents in public meetings and dodging legal problems about shutting down bridges, looked like Winston Churchill compared to Jeb by saying that he would not have invaded Iraq.

And a very big winner was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In the unlikely event that Bush is nominated and faces Clinton in a presidential debate, Bush will play the role of Dan Quayle, and Clinton will play the role of then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and say to Quayle: “I knew (fill in the blank), I was friends with (fill in the blank), and you are no (fill in the blank).”

Budowsky was an aide to former Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Texas) and former Rep. Bill Alexander (D-Ark.), who was then chief deputy majority whip of the House. He holds an LL.M. degree in international financial law from the London School of Economics. Contact him at brentbbi@webtv.net.