Word: floridas
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...Democrat lite. We can't just 'get along.'" Despite his disdain for Washington, the Senate would at least "give Jeb a bully pulpit," says a friend. That could help him keep his party from falling too far into the centrist, bipartisan hands of new Republican leaders like his successor, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who last month hosted a GOP governors conference in Bush's home city of Miami, where that more pragmatic politics was trumpeted. Even if Bush doesn't run, "considering it" at least sends the signal that after two years ensconced in private family life, he's back...
...want to preserve the Republicans' ideology, however; he also wants to put a fresher face on it. For all his right-wing reputation, Bush displayed a savvy dose of compassionate conservatism as governor, especially on issues like offshore drilling (he opposed his brother's attempts to revive it in Florida waters) and immigration. (The GOP's draconian anti-immigrant stand, in fact, is one of the reasons Martinez, the Senate's first Cuban American, felt he was in an uphill battle in the long run.) In a recent Politico.com interview, Bush, who is married to a Mexican and counts Florida...
...exactly well suited to the give-and-take of the Senate. That's not to say that the notoriously methodical upper chamber couldn't use some of Jeb's admirable, results-driven passion. But while his education reforms, for example, did raise the abysmal accountability level in Florida schools, their overweening emphasis on standardized testing and punitive measures is more reflective of the GOP-dominated state legislature he reigned over and not the Democrat-controlled Senate he would chafe under...
...Crist's possibly tepid enthusiasm for a Bush bid could be another important factor. It seems unlikely that "the Sunshine Governor," whose popularity and approval ratings have eclipsed even Jeb's (though Crist calls Bush Florida's "greatest governor"), would want to move from the governor's mansion of the nation's new bellwether state to an opposition backbench on Capitol Hill. But Crist's national aspirations were on display this year when John McCain courted him as a possible running mate, and the governor's first term ends, coincidentally, after the 2010 election. Even if Crist decided...
...work both ways for the Bushes. Jeb's Senate chances, if he does run, could be dampened by the fact that his brother is leaving the White House with approval ratings that have fallen further south than Key West. Barack Obama was the first Northern Democrat to win Florida in a presidential election in 64 years, and one of Martinez's other big troubles is his own plummeting approval numbers, thanks in no small part to his close ties to President Bush. But that could all actually be a motivator for Jeb, whose sharp sense of dynastic honor is probably...