Old Jeb, new Jeb
by digby
A little reminder of the Jeb Bush who was Governor of Florida:
Bush hasn’t always been the cheery moderate that he’s presented as today. In fact, during his first campaign for governor of Florida in 1994, he was quite conservative.
In order to win the Republican nomination in that race, Bush ran as a hard-liner, staking out positions to the right of his GOP primary opponents on issues such as education, taxes, welfare and criminal justice. He eventually prevailed over the five other Republicans in the primary, though he lost the general election.
“A lot of Bush’s ideas during his first run for governor in 1994 were really cutting-edge for the GOP,” said Dr. David Colburn, director of the Askew Institute on Politics and Society at the University of Florida. “Bush was the fellow who was out in front and leading the charge with radical reforms.”
The cornerstone of Bush’s campaign was a sweeping set of conservative proposals that, if enacted, would have made Florida a virtual laboratory for far-right policy.
“I would abolish the Department of Education as it now exists, reducing the 2,000 person bureaucracy to about 50 to administer federal education funding and maintain minimum academic standards in Florida’s schools,” Bush told the Orlando Sentinel in a November 1994 interview.
Bush also laid out a plan to require that any proposed new taxes be approved directly by Florida voters, a strategy that would have made it nearly impossible to pass them. What state revenue there was, Bush said, should be used whenever possible to hire private corporations to replace state employees.
“We must push privatization [of government] in every area where privatization is possible,” Bush told the Sentinel.
Bush’s tough brand of conservatism also featured new restrictions for Florida’s welfare recipients. In early 1994, Bush unveiled a welfare reform plan dubbed the “Phoenix Project.” The goal of the project, he later told the Miami Herald, was to “dismantle the welfare state and all the culture that comes from it.”
Under the plan, Florida would refuse to accept federal funds to aid the state’s poor families, and restrict benefits to just two years of assistance. To be eligible for benefits, poor women would be required to “identify the fathers of their children, submit to random drug tests and work if jobs were available,” according to a Herald story from March 1, 1994.
Bush’s welfare plan was an early sign of the sharply conservative tone that would come to characterize his entire campaign. In July, Bush published a now-infamous op-ed arguing against anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people, which he said were tantamount to elevating “sodomy.”
He says he’s changed his mind about the sodomy thing, FWIW.
Jeb was a man of his time who wasn’t going to be “out-conservatived.” His father had been run from office partially because he failed to placate the ascendant party wingnuts. It’s hard to imagine why anyone persists in thinking of the Bush brothers as “moderates” but they do.
But what’s most interesting about that article is those ideas aren’t particularly far right — they are mainstream Republican ideas in 2015. He doesn’t have to change a thing (well, except for railing against sodomy, which he’s done.) Conservative Jeb of 1994, is mainstream Jeb today. He might not use the same language — GOP conservative talk evolves with the times even if its policies are frozen in ice. But essentially the old Jeb is the same as the new Jeb — the difference is that he doesn’t scare the money boyz. Unlike Cruz or Paul, they know for sure he’ll put their needs first in every case. That’s what “moderate” really means these days.
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