Jeb in 2012?

Jeb in 2012?

by E.G. | AUSTIN

JEB BUSH, the former governor of Florida, has said that he may be interested in running for president in 2016, but not now. Rich Lowry offers eight reasons why Mr Bush shouldn't wait. Among the catalogue is the inevitable confrontation with the Bush brand. Mr Lowry argues that while Jeb may not benefit from being brothers with George, it's not a category killer:

In 2008, Jeb’s association with his brother would have been an absolute killer. That’s not true anymore. The controversies that made the Bush years so venomous have faded, and—partly through the miracle of the accelerated news cycle—2000–2008 already feels somewhat distant.

I doubt Mr J Bush, who's always said to have been the brother who grew up thinking of himself as presidential material, appreciates this kind of complication. But whether he runs in 2012 or 2016, I doubt he can get far without addressing this head-on.

The Bushes are the oddest of all American political families. They have a huge fragmentation issue. You have Bush-denominated politicians popping up in Texas and Florida and Connecticut. Beyond the fact there's no Bush place, there's also no Bush big idea. What is the common intellectual thread among these people, or the formative family experience? And although the number of high offices they've held would suggest that Americans like the Bush "brand", that doesn't seem to be the case. Quite the contrary: every new Bush that comes along has to shake off or distance himself from the Bushes that came before.

We could really use a public reckoning from the Bushes about their role in American life. Neither of the Georges is much given to candour, H.W. because of his WASP-y reserve and W. because he's not a pontificator. This job would fall to Jeb. Not to be overly glib, but it might be the equivalent of Barack Obama's campaign speech on race. A painful but important discussion that could help us along the path to national healing.