Can Jeb Bush Be His Own Man?

Rick Klein: “Can you be your own man while sharing a last name with other men with complicated legacies inside and outside your own party? Can you be your own man while talking to the same men (and some of the women) who advised those other men during some of the low and high points of their foreign policies? These are central questions facing Jeb Bush, as he only starts to answer for how he plans to define himself as opposed to the Presidents Bush.”

“The fact is he can’t and won’t ever entirely be able to be his own man in politics. His name and family connections confer early front-runner status on him, making him something other than just another ex-governor. They also make him the fundraising juggernaut he will always be. (One wonders whether the money folks talking about the ‘shock and awe’ fundraising strategy remember what that phrase meant in George W. Bush’s Iraq war.) For big donors as for the foreign-policy establishment, the Bush name is a comfortable and powerful one. For voters and caucus-goers, it gets quite a bit more complicated. The next question inevitably becomes, does a man who once famously said he never disagreed with anything his brother did as president find a few areas where he parts ways?”