Jeb Bush’s Immigration Flip Flop Stuns Reformers

[DonViejo]

BENJY SARLIN MARCH 4, 2013, 3:52 PM

After years of building a reputation as the “good” Republican on immigration, Jeb Bush shocked the reform community on Monday by ruling out a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, a position solidly to the right of prominent GOPers like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

The news stunned immigration activists and aides working on a bill and who have long insisted that anything short of citizenship is a dealbreaker for reform — especially given that Bush was decisively in the pro-citizenship camp just months ago. It also was a head scratcher for political observers, giving Bush an unexpected opening in 2016 to attack not only Rubio, but several possible presidential candidates, as overly liberal on immigration reform.

“Wow,” Marshall Fitz, director of immigration policy at the liberal Center For American Progress, told TPM in an e-mail. “For a guy who has been a luminary on this issue for the GOP, his endorsement of such a regressive policy is deeply troubling.”

The big question going forward, Fitz said, is “whether it cuts Rubio’s legs out from under him” by pressuring his right flank, or merely gives Rubio more power within the bipartisan gang negotiating a bill by demonstrating that conservative concerns about a bill are still a major hurdle that only he can address.

more
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/03/jeb-bush-immigration-flip-flop.php?ref=fpa

[Kelvin Mace]

1. He's going to run in 2016 and

he has to distance himself from any sane position he held in the past.

[rurallib]

2. yeppers

time to pander to the nutcases.
He'll need to do the full Mitt and even then they won't trust him
and half of America (I believe) would never trust anyone named Bush again.

[BeyondGeography]

3. Imagine being such a weasel politician

Sucks to be you, Jeb.

[Xipe Totec]

4. It's all an act; Playing Good GOP, Bad GOP.

[immoderate]

5. Jeb running as a tea bagger, maybe fighting last year's fight?

In any case, if he's nominated, we might sneak in a real progressive. Ya nevah know.

--imm

[blkmusclmachine]

6. At the end of the day, a Bush, is a Bush, is a Bush.

[Indepatriot]

7. Run Jebby Run!

"There's an old saying in Texas, fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...uh,we, we, we can't get fooled again" -Jeb's brother George.

[Beacool]

13. He actually said that?

[Indepatriot]

15. Indeed, You Tube "Bush fool me once"....

There's one minute and a half version that has about a dozen of his greatest hits..... always makes me laugh/cry....

[Beacool]

18. Isn't it incredible that we ended with that guy as president?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

8. Why does it matter with Jeb Bush thinks about immigration?

He's not POTUS and he's not a member of Congress. He's not an elected officeholder of anything right now. President Obama and Congress can still push ahead without him...............right?

[Jim Lane]

10. The significance is in what it portends for 2016.

I've been of the opinion that Jeb would not run in 2016 -- that he would deem the extreme right too powerful in the GOP, so that he couldn't get nominated, and deem the Bush name too tainted in the general electorate, so that if nominated he couldn't get elected.

The most obvious explanation for this flip-flop, however, is that he's at least thinking about making the run. (See #1 and #2 in this thread.) I wouldn't say it's a definite yet, but he knows that, if he wants to have the option, he can't cross the wing-nuts on one of their hut-button issues.

Shake that Etch-A-Sketch, Jebbie.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. So much for the party establishment's efforts to "rebrand" the party then

Seems like they are bound and determined to remain in thrall to the Tea Party radical fringe. *ugh*

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

21. This is really puzzling...

The party KNOWS it needs to reach out to Hispanic voters if it wishes to remain viable. Jeb had some bona fides in this area, and he seems to be throwing it away. I don't get that at all.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

23. Me neither

but the Republicans just can't stop drinking the tea let alone throw it overboard! I wish that we could just put them on "ignore" and move on with this country's business but they still, of course, have their hooks in the rest of us to a large enough extent that they have to be reckoned with.

If they keep on this course, their electoral viability is going to continue to diminish but it just can't happen fast enough IMHO.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. Quite the learning curve...

Romney got a first-hand look at what happens when you try to shift to the right (even though you're not one of them) and then try to shift back to the center. You come off looking like a liar.

I think Jeb is cut from the same cloth. He's a centrist (by Republican standards, anyway) who's going to try to court the lunatic vote, getting worked over by a half dozen Ron Paul wannabe's in the process, and then try to shape-shift back into a sane person long about Labor Day of 2016.

It's not going to work.

[John2]

9. Why should anyone

trust this man is beyond me after what he did in the 2000 Florida Election to help his brother become President. He was up to his waist in it. He will do or say anything to become President. Do not trust a Bush.

[Beacool]

12. That's a sure sign that he's thinking about running in 2016.

He's already courting the Tea Party kooks.

[Sancho]

14. Jeb is devious!

He probably counted the votes of the tea party vs votes of those new citizens. At any rate, the Bushes are completely in the pockets of the oil companies who pull their strings. Who knows what 3 am calls Jeb got from his overlords.

[BlueStater]

16. I'm horrified at the prospect that the next election could be Clinton vs. Bush AGAIN.

Because if both Hillary and Jeb run, they have a very good chance of capturing their respective party's nomination.

[Beacool]

19. Hey, trash Bush all you want,

but leave the Hillary out of it. She's ten times better than anything the Republicans will put out there in 2016.

[lunatica]

17. Like Mitt and others before him he'll learn that catering to the Rabid Right will backfire

on him. Mitt veered far right only to find that his etch-a-sketch strategy couldn't happen. It wouldn't have worked for anybody. The Tea Party is a nasty piece of work. And Jebbie helped create it.

[LiberalFighter]

20. If only a consitutional amendment could be passed to prohibit all Bush family

from running for President.

[sofa king]

22. He will change that position again, and again.

One thing that Mitt Romney taught all Republicans, including the Bushes, is that there is no limit to the number of lies one can tell and get away with. Tell enough of them, and you can hold multiple positions on a variety of issues through a campaign season. Romney came within five percentage points of winning in all the states he needed for victory; if he had come within three it would have been close enough to steal, and Romney did it all while happily shouldering the Bush "legacy" while it was more prominent in the minds of voters than it will be in the next election.

The criminal dishonesty of the Bushes has now been shown to be less effective than the pathological dishonesty of Mitt Romney. I expect the Bushes to take to that idea like a duck to water.

It should, of course, be obvious to all of you that Bush's real opinion is irrelevant--he's never going to tell us what he really wants to do until he's in a position to force it upon us as a unitary President.

It should also be obvious to everyone else... but it isn't.

[workinclasszero]

25. Jebby is goin to run

This proves it, hes pulling a Rmoney move, oh yeah!

[ShadowLiberal]

26. You can never start burning bridges too early to win the GOP nomination in 2016 and lose the general