The conservative Washington Times reports Jeb Bush misfires with evangelicals over gay marriage supporters in inner circle:
Rich Bott, whose religious radio network of 100 stations stretches from California to Tennessee … said it’s “hard to imagine evangelicals being excited about a Bush candidacy if he has well-known advocates of homosexual marriage leading his campaign.”
Mr. Bush is on record as opposing same-sex marriage but hired David Kochel to run his campaign organization when it becomes official. He also hired Tim Miller [who is openly gay] to be the communications director of the campaign when it gets underway, presumably later this spring.
Mr. Kochel and Mr. Miller publicly advocate same-sex marriage, arguing that it should be guaranteed under the Constitution.
Evangelical social conservatives successfully pressed Mitt Romney to drop his openly gay foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell in 2012, and that made Romney look weak. I think Bush will stand up to them, and be the stronger for it.
More. Sage words from Barry Goldwater.
Furthermore. Bush strives for balance in his May 9th commencement address at Liberty University:
Jeb Bush delivered a forceful defense of religious freedom from a secular government during a speech at an evangelical university on Saturday, deploring the rise of “coercive federal power” under President Obama that he said was seeking to impose progressive dogma on the country’s faithful.
But in an intriguing omission at a school known for its long-time opposition to same-sex unions, Mr. Bush did not mention the raging debate over the legalization of gay marriage, or express his opposition to it, even as he touched on the environment, sex trafficking and abortion.
39 Comments for “2015 Isn’t 2012, and Bush Isn’t Romney”
posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen on
Gay schmay – he can hire all the gays he wants. He lost my vote forever because of his actions in the Terri Schaivo debacle. Republicans talk a good game about reducing government but in the end they’ll whip out the iron fist of the Nanny State just as fast as the Democrats.
posted by William on
Would you have liked to have told Terri Schaivo’s parents that the plug was being pulled so their daughter would starve to death (also denied water), so that her husband could remarry? The state has a role in protecting the innocent. This was a difficult situation with the parents and husband at war, and I don’t think erring on the side of caution was irrational or Nanny State.
Odd that the only time liberals are against big government is when they want the right to take life (or not so odd).
posted by JohnInCA on
I wouldn’t have “liked” to tell them, but I would have.
When you marry someone, you form a new family, and you publicly say “this person is closer to me then any other”. It’s why your spouse is the default for end-of-life and medical decisions, why they’re the default for inheritance, for the benefactor of life insurance policies and so-on.
So the wife is in a coma, a vegetative state, is brain-dead, is so-on and etc. where medical intervention is necessary to keep them alive? Yes, absent any living wills or such that make explicit that the wife wished to diverge from the default assumption, the husband gets to make the call. You don’t have to *like* his call. You can call him horrible names for making the call. You can think he’s making the wrong call. But it remains his call to make.
posted by Doug on
It’s not as if the Schaivo case had not been reviewed prior to Bush’s involvement. It was adjudicated by every court available intimately deciding in the husbands favor. At that point it was none of Bush’s business.
posted by Anastasia Beaverhausen on
William, what makes you think I’m a “liberal”? I’m a Libertarian through and through. The government had no place in the matter whatsoever – it was her husband’s decision and her husband’s decision alone.
posted by Houndentenor on
It’s not as if this were the husband’s idea. This was the advice of medical professionals. Perhaps we should look at the reality that the only option was to let her die of starvation of thirst rather than some more human way to pass. But no. It became a political and religious issue. Note that the medical claims made by the people advocating for the parents were refuted by the autopsy. That was an embarrassing spectacle and Bush positioned himself in it for political gain. It’s only fair that he pay a political consequence for being wrong.
posted by Lori Heine on
Anastasia, you are a “liberal” because you don’t play on William’s team. If you don’t shake the right color pom-poms, then you must be evil.
The specific stances on each issue may differ from one team to the other, but it’s always the same game. They fancy themselves completely different from one another, but they are exactly alike.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
—Would you have liked to have told Terri Schaivo’s parents that the plug was being pulled….
Well, the actual issue in that particular case was what did Terri Schaivo want. Not what her parents wanted or her husband or the millions of strangers that felt the need to get involved in a deeply personal tragedy.
If you will recall the facts; Their was a nice settlement reached — after Terri fell into her brain dead state and that was used to pay for her care and try several different possible rehab treatments (none of which worked).
A few years later, their was a dispute over who had access to the settlement funds (which were going to run out). Initially, the funds had been award to the husband, but the parents wanted control over the money.
Oddly enough, I do not think that the medical investigation into Terri condition every found out precisely what went wrong.
Their were rumors floating around then and after the case got media attention, but few conclusive facts. The settlement came about — I suspect — because the hospital involved was worried about liability.
The money dispute had been going on for awhile. I suspect that the parents and the son-in-law had probably never been the best of pals to begin with, and that when you threw in the dispute over settlement money and what Terri would have wanted, a tragic situation was only going to get worse.
After none of the treatments or efforts were going to work a decision had to be made.
The husband argued that his wife would not want to have been kept alive in such a tragic situation. The parents argued that should would have wanted to be kept alive in such a situation.
Who was right about Terri’s wishes in such a situation? Again, this is probably a good reason why people should write this sort of thing down and discuss it with family/husbands/wives/partners.
Numerous courts came to the conclusion that the damage done to Terri was not able to be fixed or significantly improved and that the husband probably knew what his wife would have wanted.
However, the “I am pro-life, but anti-tax” crowd got upset. So a bunch of politicians — State and Federal — decided to push themselves into a very, very, horrible personal tragedy.
When this was going on, I seem to recall Fox News or one of the other cable news networks had Representative Barney Frank to discuss the issue — specifically the Federal bill to force the federal courts to review the case, again –.
He pointed out — quite rightly — that the hypocrisy in trying to frame this case as an issue of disability rights (as opposed to a rather nasty and tragic dispute).
I doubt that the parents or the husband were comic book heroes or villains. No matter how much effort was spent by lots of people to paint them as such.
I suspect that the parents relationship with their daughter had been severely strained and that parents were more concerned what they wanted, rather then what their daughter would have wanted.
If all the husband cared about was money or getting remarried, he had many opportunities to get both without pulling the plug.
Why President Bush or then Governor Bush (or the other politicians) felt like they were entitled to peek in on this tragedy is beyond me.
posted by Jorge on
I agree with Anastasia, and for the reason Doug mentioned. I’m extremely uncomfortable with politicians who won’t take no for an answer and put themselves above the law, and the wishes of the community.
I think Bush will stand up to them, and be the stronger for it.
Will he? It’s just so unsurprising for the brother of George W. Bush (who also irked evangelicals) that I think it’s a blip to him.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I think Bush will stand up to them, and be the stronger for it.
Will he? It’s just so unsurprising for the brother of George W. Bush (who also irked evangelicals) that I think it’s a blip to him.
President Bush may have “irked evangelicals”, but he, Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman wreaked havoc on LGBT progress toward equality, leveraging evangelical fear and loathing about gays and lesbians into 30+ anti-marriage amendments. Let’s hope that Bush history doesn’t repeat itself in this latest iteration.
posted by Ricport on
And it’ll be interesting to see if you negate everything you have written if/when you go into the voting booth for ol’ Hildebeast.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Like you and everyone else in this country who isn’t going to vote Libertarian or for another third party like the Greens, I have a binary choice.
I decided, after President Reagan invited the religious right into the Republican Party and I watched it take the party over, with the complicity of so-called “libertarian” Republicans (who now, I note, are now quoting Barry Goldwater’s warnings about the religious right, which I took seriously and they did not), to put my energy into bringing the Democratic Party around on “equal means equal”.
It wasn’t easy, particularly a decade ago when Bush/Rove/Mehlman elected to deploy “faggot, faggot” as a wedge issue and scared the shit out of Democratic politicians looked for a safe way out. It took work, lots and lots of work (it took us six years to get a simple statement — “We support marriage equality.” into the 2012 DPW and national platforms), but we prevailed in the end.
I look back and am satisfied with the work I did, along with many hundreds of others, to change the Democratic Party in this respect. I think that we are now at a point where there is no turning back. My name isn’t going into any history books, but the work I did alongside others changed the Democratic Party and is making history.
Are you equally satisfied about your role, sitting on your ass rather than working to change the Republican Party? Because that’s what conservative gays did, and conservative gays are now reaping the rewards of sitting back and doing nothing. Things could have been different if conservative gays had done something to change the Republican Party.
At this point, I don’t see any evidence that conservative gays are even willing to engage Republicans on LGBT issues. All I see happening is a lot of wishful thinking and continued attacks on left/liberal gays and lesbians, attacks that are increasingly shrill and detached from reality.
I agree with Frank Rich that we should not forget the past — the inch-by-inch political combat it took to gain ground — and we should hold Democratic politicians accountable for their past actions. But that doesn’t mean to me that I should begin voting anti-equality at this point, and I’m not going to do so.-
posted by Ricport on
and in your entire obfuscation response, no defense of ol’ Hildebeast’s clear record. Perhaps it’s because you know it’s indefensible? And you have more than two choices. You simply refuse to see beyond the DNC plantation.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
[A]nd in your entire obfuscation response, no defense of ol’ Hildebeast’s clear record.
I don’t defend the Democratic Party’s foot-dragging on “equal means equal” (Secretary Clinton’s or otherwise). I don’t think that it should be defended. Along with a lot of other people, I worked to overcome the foot-dragging and change the party’s positions. We succeeded. That’s the point.
In November 2016 (assuming that Secretary Clinton is the Democratic nominee), we will have a Democratic candidate who doesn’t probably give a rat’s ass about gays and lesbians, but who supports marriage equality, can be depended upon not to undo the Executive Orders advancing “equal means equal” issued by President Obama, will almost certainly appoint rational Justices and federal judges, and who, if pressed, may actually expand the scope of “equal means equal”.
In November 2016, what will we have for a Republican candidate?
I know that I have more than two choices (Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Constitution, America First and 20-30 others), but I don’t think that I have more than two practical choices.
The minor parties are exactly that — parties with no election prospects — so I’ll make a binary choice, like most Americans.
I have no argument with those who have chosen to get to work in the minor parties (my brother-in-law is a committed Libertarian, for example) but that is not the course I elected to take in the past, and it is not the course I elect to take now.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Every time you misname Secretary Clinton, it only proves you have nothing substantial to add to the conversation. Thanks for playing, now go back to Breitbart… adults are conversing.
posted by Ricport on
“In November 2016 (assuming that Secretary Clinton is the Democratic nominee), we will have a Democratic candidate who doesn’t probably give a rat’s ass about gays and lesbians, but who supports marriage equality, can be depended upon not to undo the Executive Orders advancing “equal means equal” issued by President Obama, will almost certainly appoint rational Justices and federal judges, and who, if pressed, may actually expand the scope of “equal means equal”.”
As long as the polls are over 51%. Get out your prayer beads and hope the tide continues to roll our way…
“The minor parties are exactly that — parties with no election prospects — so I’ll make a binary choice, like most Americans.”
No, you are stickin’ with your Dem massas. I understand you must be frustrated… All that work, and what’s your payback? Hildebeast. The Hildebeast who, for years, supported DOMA. The Hildebeast who, for years, supported DADT. The Hildebeast who, for years, opposed SSM. The Hildebeast who, if the polls supported rounding us up in boxcars, would see us off at the depot. All the while she and “hubby” sucked up lots of dollars from gay dupes while plunging the knife in their backs over…. and over…. and over again. And that doesn’t even begin to address her general pathological lying and gross incompetence.
As I’ve said before, every revolution begins with a spark. Perhaps it’s way past time to stop choosing “the lesser of two evils” and demand more? My vote has to be earned. I don’t give it to someone just because they happen to be on the team I like.
And finally, Tom, I can assure you that it’ll never, ever be any of your business what I do with my free time. However, having said that, I will say that I have spent what little free time I have to making my church and community a better place, rather than oiling political machinery. That work still must go on, you know? We all do what we can.
And Mike, as I said before, if ol’ Hildebeast was deserving of even a nanoparticle of respect, I’d afford it to her. You, Tom and the other gay Dems here can live in the delusion that her record doesn’t exist, but the inevitable, odious smell of hypocrisy still wafts to the surface, undeterred.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Evangelical social conservatives successfully pressed Mitt Romney to drop his openly gay foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell in 2012, and that made Romney look weak. I think Bush will stand up to them, and be the stronger for it.
I hope so. We are long past the day when sexual orientation should be a bar to holding a job, except in the rare cases where sexual orientation is relevant to job qualifications.
I don’t know if Governor Bush will speak out on the issue — telling social conservatives in no uncertain terms that sexual orientation is not a disqualification. It might not yet be possible for him to remain viable as a candidate if he does so, but I hope that he will.
Now, about Governor Bush’s positions …
Governor Bush currently supports most social conservative positions on “equal means equal” – marriage equality, special carve-outs from non-discrimination laws in the case of gays and lesbians, and so on.
Social conservatives believe that Governor Bush is suspect in his devotion to social conservative positions — after all, he’s signaled that he would accept a Supreme Court decision on marriage as “the law of the land” rather than fight it, just as he did on gay/lesbian adoption when he was Governor of Florida. Accordingly, social conservatives are concerned that the two campaign advisers (senior campaign advisers usually are frequently rewarded with senior staff positions in a winning candidate’s administration) will be in a position to influence Governor Bush should he be elected, and are likely to do so. In the view of social conservatives, that would be a problem.
As I see things, Governor Bush’s positions are the sticking point, not who shtups whom on his staff. So I hope that Governor Bush retains the advisers, and actually listens to them.
posted by clayton on
Accepting court decisions as “the law of the land” is hardly a ringing endorsement of equality. It puts him on the correct side of the issue, but only in the most tepid way. So if he caves to social pressure and fires his openly gay staffers, I won’t be at all surprised.
posted by Lori Heine on
Jeb Bush is a politician. He is untrustworthy because he is a typical politician. As was his brother, as was his father, as are most of the others. Political affiliation and specific base courted (or pandered to/jilted depending on the politician’s convenience) are beside the point.
Those closest to us will generally make better decisions on our behalf than will those who don’t know us. Everyone understands this concerns one’s own life, but thinks it’s somehow “different” with regard to others. By the same token, statists refuse to credit individual human beings with the competence to run our own lives, yet insist that we are competent to run those of others we don’t even know (and about whom we don’t give two hoots).
“But-but-but-but…we’re right and they’re wrong.” The opinions of each statist team on the issues differs, but never this arrogant certitude that it is “right,” and therefore fit to run everyone else’s life.
posted by Ricport on
God, I am dreading this election like I never have… A choice between yet another inept Bush and the even more-inept and thoroughly corrupt, pathologically lying Hildebeast. If these two clowns aren’t the best arguments for stronger third parties, I shudder to think what it’ll take.
posted by Jorge on
They’re smart.
They understand their respective partisan ideologies and partisan bases and work on their behalf.
They believe in good government and sometimes deviate from their bases.
And they surround themselves with smart people.
Their major failing is that they surround themselves with sycophants.
posted by Kosh III on
Ric if you dread these two choices then look elsewhere such as Dr Jill Stein (G) from a party that clearly supports equality.
posted by Houndentenor on
I would like to point out at this time that at this point in 2007 the presumed nominees were Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Neither was the nominee. I think Clinton has a far better chance this time but I don’t think Bush is going to be the nominee unless everyone else crashes and burns over the next 12 months.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I have no idea who the Republican candidate will be, and that’s a fact, but my guess is that it will either be Governor Bush or Senator Rubio.
Governor Walker (who came out for an FMA the other day, the pandering bum) looks good on paper, but he’s got a “Perry Problem”, dumb as a box of rocks he is and it shows whenever he goes off script. Senator Paul is flaky, and he wears his flakiness too close to his sleeve to sustain a successful drive for the nomination.
Governor Huckabee, Senator Cruz, Senator Santorum and the various minors who seem intent on making their bones on the “culture wars” excite the social conservative wing of the base, but only the social conservative wing of the base.
Governor Jindal is trying desperately to get noticed and nobody cares because he is the antithesis of charismatic. Governor Christie used to excite Republicans, but he’s had his day in the sun and carries too much baggage. Governor Perry has a “Walker Problem” and there is no way he can redeem his image, particularly once he opens his mouth.
So my money is on Governor Bush or Senator Rubio, who are something akin to the Clinton/Obama odd couple of 2008. But who knows how this is going to turn out? I sure don’t.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Thus far this seems like political window dressing; i.e. candidate gets to appear “moderate” by hiring a few openly gay people, but said gay people will be sidelined by the concerns of socially conservative primary voters (who said candidate reassures by asserting that he opposes gay rights).
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
As for Barry Goldwater. He comments about the “religious right” and their influence within the GOP is accurate. However, he actually did very little to oppose them (beyond some rare comments and a few ‘unorthodox’ votes).
When he ran for president, he and his campaign were not above cracking a few jokes at the expense of Walter Jenkins. President Johnson’s aid had been forced to resign after an “incident” with a man in a YMCA restrooom.
while he had generally supported abortion rights, it was not until the early 1990s that Goldwater took a more libertarian view on gay rights .
posted by Houndentenor on
It’s odd to see that quote now since the religious right started taking over the GOP 35 years ago. Nothing they have done in the platform has caused any homocon I know of to change parties. well one, may he rest in peace. An old friend of my sister’s who was a founding member of Log Cabin and left in 2004 in disgust because he finally realized that the GOP was a lost cause for anyone not willing to cater to the religious fundamentalist extremists. I figured that out by 1990 so I wonder what too everyone else so long.
posted by Lori Heine on
Social conservatives are vermin. They behave the way all vermin has behaved–everywhere on earth–since the dinosaurs roamed. If you let it in, it totally takes over. That’s what you discovered by 1990, and what some other types of conservatives still refuse to admit.
I have one Republican friend (in her 80’s) who still thinks I’m exaggerating when I warn her about this. I feel like I’m sitting in one of those lifeboats, pointing at the last big smokestack on the Titanic as it submerges. And she’s looking at it and saying, “but it’s not totally underwater yet!”
posted by Houndentenor on
There’s a great deal of similar denial in both parties. The one that frustrates me more is when people claim to be Republicans because they are for fiscal responsibility. No Republican in my lifetime has left office with a lower budget deficit than they inherited. Not one. Most increased it dramatically. And nothing sways them from that argument. There are a lot of reasons to vote for one candidate over the other, but those reasons should be based in reality. (I similarly find the excuses made for Clinton’s record on gay issues and supporting the Iraq War frustrating.)
I have not decided who I will vote for yet. For one thing I’d like to know who my choices will be before making such a decision. I will say that I’m not terribly enthusiastic about anyone who has announced so far and a good many of them (including my own Senator) scare the crap out of me.
posted by Lori Heine on
I had dinner with my senior Republican friend again this evening. She says she’s seriously thinking of re-registering as an Independent.
Every once in a while, something happens that restores a little of my faith that humanity will continue to evolve.
posted by Ricport on
Lori, there is hope. As I keep saying, every revolution begins with a spark. Considering we could very well end up with yet another Clinton or Bush, I’m hoping more and more people will stand up and break the two-party duopoly.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Jeb Bush delivered a forceful defense of religious freedom from a secular government during a speech at an evangelical university on Saturday, deploring the rise of “coercive federal power” under President Obama that he said was seeking to impose progressive dogma on the country’s faithful.
By which Governor Bush no doubt means the Executive Orders mandating equal treatment of gays and lesbians under federal programs, including federal contracting programs. We now know that Governor Bush is more likely than not to use the tools as his disposal as President to reverse federal progress toward “equal means equal”.
posted by clayton on
The same speech included some dog whistles about an unelected judiciary imposing and mandating rights not found in the constitution. Clearly references to reproductive freedom and marriage equality. I give Hen’s openly gay staffers about six months-tops-before he lets them go.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
or are found “other world” or strongly encouraged to find something else to do with their time.
posted by Lori Heine on
If this blog is going to puff Jeb Bush as a presidential candidate, it can kiss goodbye ANY credibility as a libertarian blog. The Bush family aspires (as do the Clintons) to be America’s royalty. Dubya did everything he could to further the concept of an imperial presidency.
It is not possible for any genuine libertarian to advocate for a Bush presidency. Jeb has done nothing whatsoever to distance himself from the damage his brother did to this country. Indeed, he gives every indication that he will finish what Dubya started.
“Libertarian conservatives” all too often turn out to be authoritarian toadies who cringe under the whip and sniff the throne. Cue a laugh track every time a blogger–here or anywhere else–pushes a Bush.
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
I do hope that the “baggage” jab was not directed at Governor Chris’s waist line
posted by Lori Heine on
I do, too. I’m getting ready to start a new job, and I’m very glad that it’s work-from-home most days, so I can wear pajama pants! 🙂
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Governor Chris briefly flirted with the idea of being the moderate Republican presidential candidate. It was a brief fling and had fizzled out — even before the wave of corruption scandals hit.
Yes, I too have noticed a certain amount of puffy, ‘blush 4 Bush’ at the IGF.
posted by clayton on
Bush is now coming out against marriage equality more forcefully. See his recent interview with David Bridge of the Christian Broadcast Network.