What would it look like if you combined the worst policies of the George W. Bush administration and the Mitt Romney campaign?
It would look like the emerging Jeb Bush campaign.
[This] week, Jeb Bush’s team brought on economist Glenn Hubbard — the lead architect of President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy. Hubbard also crafted Mitt Romney’s economic plan, which involved de-regulating Wall Street, further slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy and turn Medicaid into a block grant program in which states could “experiment” with health funding for the poor.
As you may recall, Jeb is also being advised by a who's who list of failed foreign and domestic policy advisers and agency chiefs.
It includes people representing a wide spectrum of ideological views in the Republican Party. It includes James Baker, known for his pragmatism in key roles during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush presidencies, and former World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, a hawk as deputy defense secretary who was an architect of George W. Bush's Iraq policy.
Among others are two former secretaries of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, former national security adviser Stephen Hadley and a deputy national security adviser, Meghan O'Sullivan, as well as two former CIA directors, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden.
Jeb Bush has pledged that he will be his "own man" on foreign policy and will somehow tackle income inequality, but judging by the people advising his campaign there is absolutely no reason to believe either claim.
Usually, what the establish wants, the establishment gets, but I am skeptical that Jeb Bush will go on to become the Republican nominee.
I said the same thing about Mitt Romney and obviously I was wrong about him, but even if Jeb Bush is the nominee I see him as easier to beat than Romney was. Romney at least had the benefit of not being a Bush. Jeb Bush will have Bush policy and the Bush name.