Former first lady Barbara Bush appeared to walk back her flat declaration that the country has “had enough Bushes” in the Oval Office, saying “maybe it’s OK” if Jeb Bush runs in 2016.
In an interview with Fox News that aired Wednesday, the Bush family matriarch said she had reconsidered her objection to another of her sons launching a bid for the White House after reading a book that detailed how power in early America was concentrated within a small handful of families.
But she reiterated that she continued to believe that “this country is such a great country, [and] that there are more than three families.”
“It just seemed to be ridiculous in a country in this size that we didn’t have other families,” Bush said. “I mean we have great governors.”
{mosads}The former first lady also joked that she had given up her trademark straight-shooting style of speech for Lent.
Bush had raised eyebrows when she told the Today Show in April 2013, that “there are other people out there that are very qualified, and we’ve had enough Bushes.”
That statement broke with her son, former President George W. Bush, who told ABC News the same week that he hoped his brother would run.
“He’d be a marvelous candidate if he chooses to do so. He doesn’t need my counsel, ’cause he knows what it is, which is ‘run,’ ” Bush said. “But whether he does or not, it’s a very personal decision.”
Jeb Bush’s allies say the former Florida governor is considering a race more seriously than ever before, and his family lineage would prove a sizable edge in the fundraising race.
“The decision will be based on, can I do it joyfully? Because I think we need candidates to lift our spirits; it’s a pretty pessimistic country right now,” Jeb Bush told a local CBS affiliate earlier this year. “And is it right for my family? So I don’t want to even think about that until the right time, and that’s later on.”