"You can improve the life of people," said Jeb! Bush in an intro video shown at his campaign launch rally. In the way of Republican campaign launch events, the Bush launch worked hard to display diversity, from the near-obligatory opening by a black minister to the remarks by a Colombian immigrant mother of a disabled daughter. "He doesn't care your political affiliation, he doesn't care the color of your skin," said Berthy de la Rosa-Aponte, "because he cares about everyone."
That was the message. The power of Jeb! Bush's warm heart is such that he individually will make you individually into a Republican if only you can get to know him. We don't need to talk in much detail about the quality of his policies as long as we can focus on the quality of his heart (toward the chosen; maybe not so much those who'd face discrimination and hardship under his policies). But the most telling introduction may have been from state Sen. Don Gaetz, an angry white man who started off by attacking President Obama. Jeb! Bush is definitely a Republican, in other words.
Then a shirtsleeve-clad, tieless Jeb! did his best to bound energetically onto the stage and started talking about "the campaign that begins today," as if he hadn't been campaigning and—especially—fundraising for months. As he's done in his pre-campaign campaigning, he talked as if he could jump straight to the general election, saying that "The presidency should not be passed on from one liberal to the next." (Uh, don't the voters get a say in that?)
Bush stuck largely to vague promises: He'll reform the tax code; bring about four percent growth in an economy that crashed, in his telling, because of President Obama; give everyone the "right to rise"; roll back "over-regulation"; crack down on lobbyists (perhaps by bringing them all into his administration?); and improve education miraculously by privatizing it. He'll support Israel and undo President Obama's efforts to normalize relations with Cuba. Where Obama hasn't focused enough on militarized foreign policy, Jeb! will ... well, govern like a Bush.
If your money was on Jeb avoiding the Bush family name, you lost your bet. He continues to embrace his Bushness, though toward the close of his remarks, he did gesture at the idea that he can't take anything for granted—a point you have to figure has been hammered into him by his standing in the polls.
Presumably this launch did what Bush needed—he had an enthusiastic crowd, his content struck a balance of "I'm conservative" and "but I'm not going to be too detailed on that front," and though he appeared to be struggling with his teleprompter early, he relaxed and warmed up as the speech went on. But he's neither a lock for Republican nominee nor a natural politician, and it didn't do much to change those perceptions, either.