Establishment Can’t Unite GOP by Dividing It

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

Associated Press writer Will Weissert recently published a column entitled,
[L][EL] "Can George P. make Jeb the 3rd Bush to win the White House?"

George P. Bush represents generation four of a political family which has
produced a U.S. Senator, two presidents, and a governor.

Son of former Florida governor and GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, "P,"
as he is known, is commissioner of Texas’ General Land Office, a powerful
agency that controls the state’s publicly-owned lands, mineral rights and
oil and gas royalties.

While praising young Bush, Weissert inadvertently revealed why he can’t help
his father: P gave away his dad’s – and the family’s – feelings about an
important component of the Republican coalition.

George P "says his dad can unite the often feuding factions of the
Republican Party by using his conservative gravitas to stand up to tea party
activists."

Reflect for a moment, then ask yourself: Why does the Bush family think it
necessary to "stand up to tea party activists?" Does P think his father can
"unite.feuding factions" by "standing up to" rather than listening to the
conservative, predominantly middle-class voters he needs to get the
nomination?

In fact, the GOP’s "conservative gravitas" lies with the party’s grassroots
factions, not duplicitous establishment figures such as Jeb Bush, Speaker
John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell and Boehner have never delivered on 2014 campaign promises to
force minority Democrats to vote on or filibuster publicly-popular bills
they find politically inconvenient and President Barack Obama to veto those
which pass both houses.

Commentator Mark Steyn explained the party’s intramural dispute to Fox’s
Neil Cavuto: "[The conservative base] supported the Republican Party
establishment, delivered them a huge [House] victory in 2010,. a huge
victory in the House and Senate in 2014, and got nothing to show for it.
.[T]hey’re tired of being stiffed by the Republican.establishment. . [T]he
voter base of the Republican Party absolutely hates the Republican Party
leadership and establishment."

No Republicans are more establishment than the Bush family, nor more
distrustful of genuine conservatives.

Weissert: "The younger Bush .was an early endorser of longshot [Texas]
Senate candidate Ted Cruz, now a senator and one of his father’s primary
race rivals."

Sen. Cruz publicly criticized
[L][EL] McConnell for being half of a leadership "cartel" with Democratic
Minority Leader Harry Reid: "They support the same priorities. . [S]ince the
Republicans took a majority, we returned . to pass a trillion dollar
‘cromnibus’ bill filled with corporate welfare and pork. . voted to fund
Obamacare. .voted to fund President Obama’s unconstitutional executive
amnesty. . voted to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank, an egregious example
of cronyism and corporate welfare."

"[McConnell and Reid].operate as a team…"

Furthermore, to avoid individual accountability, McConnell and most Senate
Republicans voice-voted through measures to fund Planned Parenthood and to
advance President Barack Obama’s potentially-disastrous nuclear agreement
with Iran.

Perhaps, if he truly is, as he says, a "movement conservative," George P.
Bush could convince skeptics by endorsing Ted Cruz again or persuading his
father to withdraw.