5 reasons why Jeb Bush won’t make it through the GOP nomination

By Jill Bond

When you stop and take a closer look at Jeb Bush (and believe me, both sides will look deep), you find that there are many reasons to scrutinize his potential presidential run. Here are but a few of those that will be looked at closely:

  • We have Jeb Bush to thank for working with the NRA to push the license-to-hunt-and-kill-people law in the state of Florida known as Stand Your Ground — whose victims include 26 children, and an education program that has proved to be weak and questionable.
  • He didn’t know what the Paycheck Fairness Act was (a bill that ensures women are paid equally for equal work), and doesn’t support it once he’s told.
  • Within a year of leaving the governorship of Florida, Bush became a consultant for Lehman Brothers — the Wall Street giant whose bankruptcy sealed this nation’s financial meltdown — and tried unsuccessfully to broker a deal called “Project Verde” in Mexico with a billionaire telecom mogul.
  • He’s been wishy-washy on immigration, trying to balance kissing Republican right-wing extremist leader’s butts while not scaring off Hispanic voters, calling for undocumented immigrants to be handled with “compassion” as he seeks to toughen regulations against them.
  • In efforts to expand his wealth after being Florida’s governor, Bush was hired by InnoVida, a manufacturer of cheap building materials, as a consultant and to sit on the board of directors. The company faked documents, lied about the health of the business and misappropriated $40 million in company funds, according to the New York Times. The company went bankrupt in 2011. Bush didn’t have any better luck sitting on the board of Swisher Hygiene, a soap maker, whose financial statements were unreliable and accounting practices were sketchy, causing stock prices to plunge and shareholders to sue.

But don’t feel sorry for Jeb, at one point he sat on six company’s boards at once (including the board of a company, Tenet Health Care,  that endorsed the Affordable Care Act, though Bush called it “flawed to its core”), and has amassed $3.2 million in board fees and stock grants, and millions more in speaking fees. He’s continued to court billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his endless supply of cash that has propped up many a Republican candidate.

If Jeb Bush does decide to run for president, he’ll have plenty of big-money donors standing in line to lobby for his favors; which seem to be the only people who really want him to run, as his own family has had their doubts, out loud, with his son George P. Bush saying he wouldn’t endorse him (but he’d cave and vote for him, because… family occasions), and his mother Barbara Bush wanting to see a family in the White House other than another Bush or Clinton. Plus if Bush doesn’t win the Republican nomination or the presidency, he’ll just have more fodder for another book and more speaking engagements lined up.

(From the: BNR)