Jeb Bush Announces Playing Down His Last Name

Jeb Bush “will enter a presidential contest — unruly in size, unyielding in pace and voracious in cost — that is unlike any faced by his father, George Bush, who won the office in 1988, or his brother, George W. Bush, who claimed it in 2000,” the New York Times reports.

“And as the third member of his family to seek the nation’s highest office, he brings to the race a last name that at once burnishes and tarnishes, evoking the nobility of public service and a deep distrust of political entitlement. Mr. Bush’s campaign will highlight that tension on Monday with the selection of a spare logo, first used in his failed 1994 race for governor, that excludes his surname. It reads simply Jeb!”

Politico: ” Jeb Bush isn’t a fresh face. The conservative base isn’t enamored of him. And his family name isn’t necessarily an asset… That leaves Bush with one straightforward path to the GOP nomination: an argument based on his durability and electability.”