Bush III?

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White House Letter: Like it or not, Bush III is being primed to run

Bush III? Or has the dynasty run its course? Those are the questions some Republicans are asking themselves as political talk bubbles up yet again about President George W. Bush's brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, and his interest in the White House. The chief driver of the mini-buzz is the current occupant of the White House, who has said twice this month that his younger brother would make "a great president."
No one is suggesting, the president included, that the younger Bush will run in 2008, and Governor Bush, whose second term is up at the end of this year, has adamantly ruled it out.
But Republican party leaders continue to talk seriously about a continuation of the dynasty, a Bush III administration, with Jeb as a candidate in 2012 or 2016, when the memory of the current president's dismal poll ratings will be less of a factor. That, at least, is what happened the last time around, when the first President Bush's unpopularity at the end of his term in 1992 did not hurt his eldest son when he ran for president eight years later.
"Look, I think he'd be a great president," the current President Bush said in response to a question about Jeb's intentions at a restaurant industry trade show in Chicago last week. "But he said he's not going to run in 2008, and I think you've got to take him for his word. He's been in public life now for eight years, and I think he wants a breather."
Less than two weeks before, the president was more expansive in an interview with a group of Florida newspaper reporters. According to the St. Petersburg Times, Bush said he had "pushed" his brother "fairly hard about what he intends to do" and that his political future "is very bright, if he chooses to have a political future."
The president also said that "I would like to see Jeb run at some point in time, but I have no idea if that's his intention or not."
Later the same day, Jeb Bush responded, with 14 television cameras trained on him, that "I'm not running for president, I'm not running for United States Senate, I'm not going to run." For good measure he added, "Why doesn't everyone believe me on this?"
One reason is that Jeb, who was always considered the political comer compared to his brother, the black sheep, was the original family favorite to run for president. But in a turn of events that has become a political parable, George surprised even his mother by upsetting Governor Ann Richards of Texas in 1994, the same year that Jeb lost by two percentage points to Governor Lawton Chiles of Florida. Although Jeb came back to easily beat Buddy McKay in 1998, by then his brother was in line for the White House.
People close to the Bushes say there are two major factors, political and personal, driving the governor's thinking.
First, Republicans say that running on the heels of what has shaped up to be a dismal second term for his brother would be difficult, if not impossible. Even if the current President Bush's approval ratings were better, Republicans say that Jeb, for all his political popularity in Florida, would still have to define himself in the shadow of his brother's White House.
"The first question would be, 'What would you do differently than your brother?'" said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire Republican who is close to the Bush family. "And that's a pretty tough race to run."
Others say that for all the prevalence of political dynasties in America - the Adams, the Kennedys, the Clintons - Bush III would still be a hard sell.
"After two generations of this, I can't imagine what it would take to make the American people sail again with another Bush," said Kevin Phillips, the author of "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush," a book that is sharply critical of the Bush family.
Second, friends of the Bushes say that Jeb does not want the intense focus of a presidential campaign just now on his wife and daughter, and that his mother, for one, is opposed to a 2008 race.
"It's very clear that he knows what he has to do for himself and his family in the immediate future," said Ron Kaufman, a political adviser to the first President Bush.
In 2002, Jeb's daughter Noelle, then 24, was arrested on charges of prescription fraud after she illegally tried to buy the anti-anxiety drug Xanax from a drugstore in the small hours of the morning. In 1999 Jeb's wife, Columba, was fined $4,100 by customs officials in Atlanta for failing to declare $19,000 in clothing and jewelry she bought on a trip to Paris.

In the meantime, the current president keeps talking up his younger, larger brother - up to a point. When a member of the audience in Chicago last week told the president that "we love your brother" and that "he's been very good to the restaurant industry," Bush, not missing a beat, responded to laughter that "he has been eating a lot, I noticed."
This is the last White House Letter by Elisabeth Bumiller, who is going on book leave.