Redstate

None for Rudy, but what about Fred?

By Mark Kilmer Posted in 2008 — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

In American politics, what with our federal system, there are currently two distinct groups of Bushies: the President's peeps and the Governor's. The headline in The Hill -- Bush family hedges its bets for 2008 -- makes it sound as if it were an investment strategy, and perhaps it is.

The George Bushies, the paper reports, are flocking to the campaign of Arizona Senator John McCain, while the Jeb Bushies are jumping on the Mitt Romney bandwagon. Or maybe it is another neocons scheme, ranking right up there with Halliburton, BushLied™, Elian Gonzalez, and assisting in Joe Wilson's efforts to broadcast the name of Val Plame to all who would listen.

Read On…

McCain’s campaign has signed the lion’s share of the best known lieutenants of the president’s election campaigns. Terry Nelson, Mark McKinnon, and Steve Schmidt, who worked on Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, now serve McCain. Nelson served as Bush’s political director, McKinnon and Schmidt handled media strategy. Matt David, who handled rapid response, also works for McCain.

Brian Jones and Danny Diaz worked for the president as media specialists for the Republican National Committee (RNC). They are also on McCain’s team.

Meanwhile, from Florida:

Much of Jeb’s inner circle has picked Romney. The list includes Sally Bradshaw, who served as Gov. Bush’s campaign manager in 1994 and 1998 and as his first gubernatorial chief of staff; Ann Herberger, who was the governor’s campaign finance director; and Mandy Fletcher, who recently headed Bush’s think tank, Foundation for Florida’s Future, and worked on his reelection. In addition, Alan Philp, Bush’s former policy director, is coordinating policy and issues for Romney.

Jeb Bush’s former lieutenant governor Toni Jennings, Al Cardenas, who served as Florida GOP chairman under Jeb, David Griffin, who headed Jeb’s second -term transition office and was the Florida Lottery Secretary, Sherri McVay, executive director of Jeb’s statewide advocacy council, and Kristy Campbell, the former governor’s press secretary, are all playing roles in Romney’s campaign.

Current and former state legislators who worked closely with Jeb are also backing Romney — former Florida House Speakers Allan Bense and John Thrasher, Rep. Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), state Rep. Dennis Baxley, state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, and state Rep. Anitere Flores. Bense, Thrasher, and Feeney held the senior posts in the state House while Jeb was governor.

“You couldn’t say all of Jeb’s friends are with Romney but you could say the lion’s share of his A team is with Romney,” said Feeney, who was Bush’s running mate during his unsuccessful 1994 gubernatorial bid.

Romney supporter Baxley thinks Jeb's behind his peeps backing Romney: "I would suspect that people like Sally [Bradshaw, former Jeb campaign manager and chief of staff] don’t go to work for anybody and are very interested in what the governor thinks about Romney."

(The paper has a nifty pdf chart of the George Bushies for John and the Jeb Bushies for Mitt.)

Now, there are some George W. Bush peeps with Romney – "Matt Rhoades, who served as research director, and Kevin Madden, who worked with the press." – and some Jeb Bush folks with McCain – "Kathleen Shanahan, Bush’s chief of staff from 2001 to 2003, Phil Handy, whom Bush appointed to the state’s Education and Governance Reorganization Task Force, Corey Tilley, who served as the governor’s deputy chief of staff, and Jim Smith, whom Jeb Bush appointed as secretary of state" – but reporter Alexander Bolton sees a pattern. This plot is evidently the thought of New Jersey (Rutgers) political science Prof Ross Baker:

“It’s betting on two horses," said Baker of the Bush family’s apparent hedging strategy. “It seems to me an effort to diversify their portfolio."

It appears that Baker thinks that the Bush brothers are playing GOP Kingmakers. The idea, he says, is that "[s]hould McCain falter and prove not very appetizing," Romney becomes the Bush brothers' choice.

We've been told that Clinton (Hillary) was inevitable for the Dems, what with the behind-the-scenes forces and Voodoo at work, so why not the inevitability of either McCain or Romney for the GOP as a result of machinations of the Bushie Machine? (Dick Morris might want to get with Professor Baker on this.)

We should ask, though: what happens to the Bushes and the Bushies if this guy manages to win the Republican Presidential nomination? They probably could not have backed Rudy, what with his social liberalism, but what, really, are Giuliani's chances?

What happens to the Bushes and the Bushies if this fellow turns the campaign on its side and rewrites the dynamic? (Yes, he'd have to do a lot more than merely .)