The Candidate for 2008: John Ellis Bush?

Over at the National Review, David Freddoso discusses the possibility that, instead of giving the GOP an early nominee, the front-loaded primary schedule might lead to a brokered convention. Obviously, that’s the kind of thing that political geeks dream of. Day of floor-fights, dramatic votes, and the like – it’s almost enough to make me book some vacation time in patient expectation. But, for Republicans, it may well represent more than that – an opportunity.

So far, among the Republicans, no one’s made the sale. That’s true for me, personally. At the moment, I like McCain – but I have reservations about his age and his maverick tendencies. I admire Giuliani – but I’m not sure if he’d be acceptable to the Republican base and I’m concerned that there may be hidden scandals. I would support Fred Thompson, but his campaign has been kind of listless. I’m ambivalent towards Romney (too fake, too clean-cut) and I dislike Huckabee (I have a hard time believing that, in wartime, anyone could seriously support a candidate for the Presidency whose chief qualifications are that he lost a lot of weight and can quote the Bible real pretty) – but I’d support either of them against the Democrats. The other candidates don’t even cross my radar screen, save for Ron Paul who, as I have mentioned in the past, I despise with every fibre of my being. I think a lot of Republicans (swap the names and the reasons) are in more or less the same place.

But, there is another candidate out there – the perfect candidate for the Republican Party in 2008. The extremely popular former Governor of a major swing state. An articulate and principled conservative. Someone with a clean personal history who has displayed the qualities of a decisive leader in high office. He’s electorally demographically perfect as well – Catholic, Spanish-speaking, and with a Hispanic wife. The only problem is that his name is John Ellis Bush.

If Governor Jeb Bush of Florida was Governor John Ellis of Florida, the race for the Republican nomination would already be long over. But, alas, realities being what they are Bush’s name is now doubly an albatross. First, many would obviously have issues with the President being followed in office by his own brother. Second, of course, there is the fact that President Bush remains fairly unpopular. However, it’s December of 2007 at the moment and the Republican convention isn’t for eight months. Both of those issues might be dispensed with by then.

The first issue, obviously, can be dispensed with in 2008 altogether if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for President. Though Democrats are sufficiently venal to passionately denounce nepotism while offering up the wife of a former President as their own candidate for the Presidency, the only Americans stupid enough to fall for that argument are Democrats already.

The second may prove more tricky – but not impossible. Rasmussen, by far the most reliable polling company in recent years, has the President’s approval rating at 39%. With Iraq fading as an issue and a recession looking less and less likely, it’s quite possible that President Bush’s approval rating might be substantially higher by the summer of 2008. If it crosses into the mid-50’s (it’s worth recalling that both President Reagan and President Clinton’s ratings went up significantly during the final year of their term), the Bush name ceases to be a liability and, instead, becomes a rallying cry for Republicans.

Is any of this likely? No. I still think that the most likely GOP nominee is Rudy Giuliani. But, it’s at least remotely possible to imagine scenario where the Republicans emerge from the first or second ballot in Minneapolis and, amid the summer heat, one delegates whispers the name “Bush” to another and things just go from there.