This was in early 1994, when I accompanied Bush on one of his first trips through Texas as he prepared to run for governor. The fellow he was talking to was John Ellis Bush–Jeb–then regarded as the Bush son most likely to follow Dad into the White House. These days, Big Brother is calling again. But now the subject is more urgent: rescuing Jeb from political oblivion.
Of all the races in all the places across the country this fall, none is more important to the president than getting “Little Brother” re-elected governor of Florida in his surprisingly tight race with Democratic attorney Bill McBride of Tampa.
Electoral College arithmetic is one reason, of course. As he contemplates the presidential race of 2004, the president knows that Florida again promises to be the mother of all battles–as close and contested as in 2000. His brother’s presence in the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee was a big help two years ago. For the Bush White House, there is no worse nightmare than having a Democrat–let alone a shrewd lawyer like McBride–in the governorship.
But in the Bush family, the only thing more important than politics is family, and Jeb’s saga has turned from stellar promise to personal and political anguish. New polls show him in a virtual tie with McBride; the 2000 election has made him the Democrats’ national Enemy No. 1; his daughter, Noelle, is facing a humiliating public hearing on charges that she violated the terms of her drug rehab program.
Little Brother, it turns out, wasn’t the lucky brother.
Back in the early ’90s, the smart money–and the family’s hopes–rode with Jeb. He was the tall and lanky son (which matters to Bushes; founding father Prescott, Ike’s golfing partner, was 6 feet 4 inches tall). He was the son with a Phi Beta Kappa key (from the University of Texas, through which he raced in two and a half years). He was the son who spoke mellifluous Spanish. And he, not George, was the apple of their mother’s discerning and ambitious eye for power.
Jeb had everything but destiny on his side. Eldest brother George had first dibs on a state to try to call his own and chose Texas–which through the ’80s began to rise as the base and anchor of a new, more conservative Republican Party. Jeb, with fewer schoolboy ties to Texas, chose as his center of operations Florida–which has turned into the San Andreas Fault of American politics.
When they both ran for governor in 1994, the conventional wisdom was that Jeb would win and Dubya would lose. Jeb was an office-holder and was a smooth campaigner. But he ran a philosophically indistinct campaign against a once-in-a-generation Florida phenomenon, former governor (and senator) Lawton Chiles. Meanwhile, in Texas, George W. was being schooled in the new conservative themes, and he stuck to them in a plodding but disciplined way to topple a complacent incumbent, Ann Richards. On election night, Barbara Bush was reportedly more disappointed that Jeb had lost than excited that “Georgie” had won.
When Jeb ran again in 1998, he did so as a full-bore conservative, and he faced a weaker candidate in Buddy McKay. I covered that race, too, and remember the Bush family flocking south to help Little Brother save face. He did.
Since winning the White House, Bush has ordered Karl Rove, his political consiglieri, to spare no effort to get Jebbie re-elected–even if doing so risks creating political complications elsewhere. The Bush White House has banned oil drilling off the coast of Florida, even while encouraging it elsewhere. It has funneled money to the Everglades rescue project. It has kept the Pentagon’s Central Command in Tampa. And Rove recently blocked an effort by GOP farm-state senators to open Cuba to American grain shipments–a move opposed by Florida’s virulently anti-Castro Cuban exile community. Farm-state GOP candidates were furious.
Not surprisingly, Jeb seemed unsettled when asked on NBC’s “Today” show whether he wanted to seek the White House in 2008. It’s been a much tougher row to hoe so far than he–or anyone else–expected. The presidency is far from his mind. He joked that he might just as well want to become a priest as a president. (He is, in fact, a convert to Catholicism, and a devout one). I’m not sure he was speaking entirely in jest. I know him from interviews to be a soulful sort, given to the kind of poetical introspection and doubt that is utterly foreign to his hard-charging, never-look-back Big Brother.
Between now and Election Day, the president will travel to Florida at least twice. He’s already been there 10 times since taking office. Ma and Pa have raised money there early and often. Cabinet members have flown in and out like so many snowbirds. Will it be enough to save Jeb? On election night expect another Big-Little Brother call. For now, we can only imagine what they’ll be saying.
