Jeb Bush, Going for Broke in South Carolina, Embraces Legacy

(New York Times) - In his early days as a presidential candidate, Jeb Bush appeared to campaign in a defensive stance: Sensitive about his political patrimony, he insisted he was his “own man” and struggled to address the conduct of the Iraq war under his brother, President George W. Bush.

Saddled with a record of supporting lenient immigration policy, Mr. Bush practiced the politics of reassurance, putting his plans for border security front and center and declaring prominently in a summer debate that he would never support “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants.

But in the final days of the South Carolina primary campaign, Mr. Bush has almost entirely shed that caution. If he once seemed determined to prove he was more than a political legacy kid, he is presenting himself to voters now as precisely that.

Trailing in the polls and fighting for his political life in a conservative, Southern state, Mr. Bush has offered an unrestrained embrace of the softer-edged governing philosophy that Republican insiders refer to as Bushism: a political sensibility focused on making government more responsive, rather than slashing its size, and encompassing policies like school vouchers and creating a pathway to legal status for workers who are undocumented.

Mr. Bush has pointed frequently in South Carolina to his brother George as a Republican success story, stressing his record on national security and his insistence on creating a conservative message that could appeal to economically disadvantaged voters and racial minorities.

Standing beside the 43rd president in a convention hall here on Monday, Jeb Bush called on Republicans to emulate his brother and campaign in a more inclusive tone, with an eye toward expanding the party.

“The only way a Republican and a conservative wins is by campaigning with their arms wide open, with a hopeful, optimistic message, campaigning in every nook and cranny of this country,” he said. In other words, he explained, the Republican nominee must “campaign like George W. did.”

From the outset of the 2016 race, Mr. Bush said he was willing to lose the primary to win the general, a statement of principle intended to signal that he would not lurch to the right in an effort to placate the party’s most conservative wing. But facing annihilation at the hands of Donald J. Trump, Mr. Bush has taken up the mantle of what his brother labeled “compassionate conservatism” with new vigor. Read more.