Jeb Bush’s (mis)calculation

State of the 2016 Race
A weekly column for The Hill analyzing the current state of the 2016 presidential race.

The Bush (mis)calculation:

1. The Bush political operation is very good and sharp. They are not to be underestimated. They learn from the past — and they change accordingly.

2. Example: Poppy Bush i.e. the first President Bush, quickly got out of sorts with the right in 1990 and soon lost them when he broke his Reaganesque “no new taxes” pledge and agreed to raise taxes as part of a big budget deal engineered by Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Dick Darman.

3. The right — which loved President Reagan — always had doubts about George H.W. Bush. He was seen as a prepster, a dilettante and culturally not in tune with the then-new right.

{mosads}4. To counter that, George H.W. Bush adapted as best he could. He switched from pro-choice to pro-life. Stylistically, he dumped his madras wristwatch bands. He proclaimed his love for pork rinds and country music.

5. But, despite this effort, the right never bought the first Bush. Pat Buchanan came at him in the 1992 primaries and took over the base and divided the GOP. Then Perot came along in the general and got many of those anti-Bush GOP base voters.

6. So in 1999 and 2000, the Bush machine very cleverly rejiggers the Bush image for the campaign of the next George Bush. This time, instead of a preppy Northerner who was never totally accepted on the right — even though he was Reagan’s vice president — they take George W. Bush — forever known inside the family as “Junior” and re-dub him as “W” — and quickly morph him into the son of a president, all right; but they make him not the son of Bush, but instead the son of Reagan! They dress him in cowboy duds and give him his own ranch — even though there are no animals on that ranch.

7. They make him a born-again Christian who has always been pro-life.

8. In other words, they make him almost the exact opposite of his father.

9. And it worked!

10. The right — or the base of the GOP — accepted W. and never abandoned him, even when he exploded the debt and so mismanaged things that the GOP lost both the House and the Senate.

11. So now we arrive at the Jeb for president campaign.

12. Jeb had a genuinely conservative record as the two-term governor of Florida.

13. But for some odd, inexplicable reason he is not talking much about his conservative bona fides. Instead, he says, “Sometimes you have to lose the primary in order to win the general election.”

14. Wrong!

15. You don’t get to participate in the general election unless you win the primaries!

16. But the Bush team has, in effect, deliberately tried to distance Jeb from the GOP Base.

17. Why?

18. Why is this smart?

19. Is it because W. was so close to the base — and Team Jeb wants to do it differently?

20. Whatever the reason, this runs contrary to the traditional way of getting nominated and elected nationally as a Republican: first you move just enough to the right to win both the base and the nomination and then, once you’ve secured the party’s nomination, you move to the center to garner independent, moderate and centrist voters in the general election.

21. The base of the Republican Party is essential not only for winning both the nomination and the general, but also for governing. A Republican president has to have his party’s base firmly and enthusiastically behind him at all times. Period.

22. As of today, Jeb has almost gone out of his way to antagonize the base on amnesty for illegal immigrants and on Common Core.

23. As a result, the base deeply distrusts Jeb Bush. It is hard to see a circumstance where that base could or would support him — even if he were to somehow win the GOP nomination.

24. Instead, we would be heading into a November 2016 repeat of John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012: where over 3 million registered conservatives simply stay home on Election Day.

25. As smart and clever as the Bush machine might have been, in this instance, they have gotten too cute by half. They think that by distancing themselves from the “yahoos” — or those his father called the “extra chromosome conservatives,” which now includes the Tea Party — that Jeb will be seen as a reasonable fellow in the 2016 general election.

26. But if you look at the polls, the GOP is now heavily tilting toward more conservative candidates on the very issues where Jeb is weak: immigration and education.

27. It makes you wonder: How does Jeb see himself actually winning these caucuses and primaries if a majority of the party is against him and against his positions on these issues?

28. Remember: You don’t get to play in the World Series unless you win the pennant first.

29. Right now, Jeb is running behind Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wis.) and Ben Carson nationally. Tell me, please: when Dr. Carson crumbles — and he will — where does his 18 percent go?

30. Does any of it go to Jeb?

31. The answer is “no.”

32. The GOP base is now decidedly anti-dynasty and anti-establishment.

33. And Jeb Bush is the epitome of dynasty politics and mainstream Establishment politics.

34. It could be that the Bush machine may no longer understand the Republican Party — and the strength and passion of the all-important base.

LeBoutillier is a former Republican congressman from New York and is the co-host of “Political Insiders” on Fox News Channel, Sunday nights at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. He will be writing weekly pieces in the Contributors section on the “State of the 2016 Race.”