Jeb Bush hasn’t exactly played his cards well for most of the year but he’s pursuing the right strategy against Marco Rubio by calling him the “GOP Obama.”
The national media notes Bush’s team is trying to paint Rubio as the Republican equivalent of Barack Obama. This isn’t an attempt from the Bush camp to label Rubio as a liberal--and in all fairness Rubio is generally to Bush’s right. This is a jab focused on Rubio’s lack of experience.
There are a few superficial similarities to be sure. Obama and Rubio both were in their first terms when they set their eyes on the White House. When they ran for the Senate, both of them were in the national spotlight. Obama won applause for his speech at the 2004 Democratic convention and was in the limelight as he beat Alan Keyes in the Senate race later that year. By catching Charlie Crist in the primary and then crushing him in the general election, Rubio, also a gifted speaker, burst on the national stage.
Bush can also draw on a little bit of history. Americans generally don’t like to propel senators into the White House. Only three men--Warren Harding, John F. Kennedy and Obama--went from the Senate to the presidency without a stop in between. Harding’s and Obama’s lack of executive experience often shown through. Granted not all presidents with Senate experience underwhelmed in the Oval Office: Harry Truman is generally regarded as one of the better presidents despite his brief vice presidency for example. But voters generally prefer their presidents to have had executive experience, either as governors or in the cases of Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush as vice presidents.
It’s an attack that might draw blood. Republican primary voters are conservatives with their ballots as well as with their beliefs. Very few dark horses win the Republican presidential nomination. For the most part, Republicans prefer familiar figures to lead the party though the current political mess has given momentum to candidates like Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson and, to a far lesser extent, Carly Fiorina with no electoral experience.
The great conservative thinker Michael Oakeshott captured the traditional Republican sentiment well. “To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss,” Oakeshott wrote.
The familiar to the unknown. Bush can argue that voters took a gamble on the unknown in 2008 when they elected Obama to the White House and going with Rubio in 2016 would be the same thing.
But Republicans have heard this before as Bob Dole, Mitt Romney and even John McCain made the same kind of arguments against their primary foes. Republicans are restless and not happy with politics as usual and the Bush family even if the GOP hasn’t won a presidential election without a Bush on the ticket since 1972. So far, Jeb Bush has shown little ability to read the mood of Republicans across the nation. As the buzz grows louder that his campaign is failing, the effectiveness of this jab against Rubio can help Bush gauge how that line of attack works against his fellow Sunshine State Republican--and the other GOP hopefuls in the mix.
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
