Again, the obvious question becomes: why Jeb Bush? The country has hardly been clamoring for another Bush presidency. His brother's term in office has become all but unspeakable in conservative circles. I can see why members of the Bush family might want to redeem the family name, or at least have some claim to fame other than worst president ever, and father of the worst president ever, but asking the entire conservative movement to play along seems like a long way to go. Florida, for its part, was not exactly a shining beacon of anything during the tenure of the elder scion, so there would seem little there that would cry out for making sure this other Bush fellow got a chance to be president too.
Conservatism is at the shore of a new awakening but is afraid to cross the river.
And the name of that broad current is the Batshit Crazy River, known far and wide in the land as the river you really ought not cross. But there hasn't been a river yet the modern movement has not been willing to plunge into and through—they made quick work of Liar's Creek, Delusional Brook, and the mighty Racist River (southern fork)—so I have little doubt they will make short work of this one.
But Bush/Christie vs. Sarah Palin/Rick Perry positions coming head to head at the Republican Convention would pit the storied worlds of Dexter and Paulie Walnuts; the most notoriously corrupt, burned-out, busted-up, used-up, dangerous, underwater and broke Eastern states, against the new, independent, states-oriented, freedom-seeking constitutional conservatives like Palin of the Western states, Texas and Alaska.
Get it? Bush and Palin are two mafia officers. Jeb Bush is the old, "burned-out" one, and Sarah Palin is the psychopathic, paranoid, violent nutcase. A fresh face, in other words!
I'm going to out on a very stout limb here and say this fantasized-about episode will never happen. I have to believe that Jeb Bush, who is painted by most of his friends as not an idiot, knows full well that the country is not ready to give his family name another shot at things quite so soon. I have to believe Sarah Palin would be immensely flattered, and do as much as possible to push the rumors herself, but in the end I do not see her committing to the actual effort of any campaign, because that is not what she does. But the conservatives will continue to dream of it, and that says as much about the rudderless movement as anything I could come up with myself.
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