Did Jeb Bush survive high-pressure CPAC appearance?

Did former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush impress the right-leaning crowd at CPAC, or did they boo him as a squishy RINO, a Republican-in-name-only? Or both?

|
Carolyn Kaster/AP
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush pauses as he speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Md., Friday.

How did Jeb Bush do today in his big talk at the Conservative Political Action Conference? Did he impress the right-leaning crowd or did they boo him as a squishy RINO, a Republican-in-name-only, due to his past support for immigration reform and Common Core educational standards?

Well, there were some boos. As we wrote earlier, CPAC is a tough venue for Mr. Bush. It attracts an activist conservative audience, full of the kind of people who think Republican establishment figures Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker John Boehner are sellouts because they don’t fight President Obama with every legislative weapon available.

There was even an audience walk-out, as predicted. A group gathered in the hall outside the auditorium and chanted something about “freedom” while Bush talked inside.

But we bet Jeb is happy with his appearance. It wasn’t as smooth as he probably would have liked, but he seemed forceful enough, and certainly more polished than his brother George W. did at the same point in his own presidential campaign.

Bush did not back down from key positions he knew would be unpopular with the crowd, particularly his support for some sort of pathway to legalization for illegal immigrants now in the country.

In perhaps the key moment of the appearance, he said bluntly, “The simple fact is there is no plan to deport 11 million people. We should give them a path to legal status.”

This was met by a mix of boos, but many cheers. (Of course, it’s possible the cheers came from Bush supporters bused in for the occasion.)

Bush also defended his past support of Common Core standards. But interlocutor Sean Hannity helped him frame this in the context of his more conservative educational policies, including his support for the nation’s first statewide school choice law when he served as Florida governor.

And he tied both immigration and education back to the “Right to Rise,” the way of talking about economic growth that he’s clearly trying to make the theme of his early campaign.

“I believe that what we ought to be focused on is growing the economic pie and growing it a rate that looks more like the '80s in America . . . If we grow at 4 percent a year there’s enough for all,” said Bush.

On foreign policy questions, Bush seemed to have readier answers than the sitting governors who are GOP 2016 hopefuls, such as Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Chris Christie of New Jersey.

“If I were one of the other 2016s right now, I’d be very worried about facing @JebBush on a debate stage,” tweeted Washington Post national political correspondent Karen Tumulty as Bush’s time concluded.

.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to  Did Jeb Bush survive high-pressure CPAC appearance?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2015/0227/Did-Jeb-Bush-survive-high-pressure-CPAC-appearance
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe