Jeb Bush will begin to sketch out the framework for his likely presidential campaign message in a speech Wednesday to the Detroit Economic Club, with a focus on seeking solutions outside of Washington to the country’s most pressing economic problems.
The former Florida governor, who will almost certainly be a front-runner for the Republican nomination for the presidency when he announces his campaign, will use the address, the first in a series laying out Bush’s policy priorities, to hone in on a popular theme among likely presidential candidates: wage stagnation and the middle class. And Bush will hit, of course, on the “right to rise” — which inspired the name of his political action committee.
“Today and in the coming weeks, I will address this critical issue, and I will offer a new vision,” Bush will say, according to excerpts of the speech. “A plan of action that is different than what we have been hearing in Washington, D.C. It is a vision rooted in conservative principles and tethered to our shared belief in opportunity and the unknown possibilities of a nation given the freedom to act, to create, to dream and to rise.”
Hitting Washington is not a new tack for candidates looking to run as Washington outsiders, and many other likely Republican candidates for president are already beginning to adopt a similar strategy. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, for example, traveled to Washington last week to deliver a states-first message.
Bush will strike a similar note in his speech Wednesday, arguing that Washington is an out-of-touch “company town.”
“Our nation has always valued such economic freedom because in economic freedom, each citizen has the power to propel themselves forward and upward,” Bush will say. “This really isn’t understood in Washington, D.C. And you can see why: It’s a company town. And the company is government. It’s all they know.
“For several years now, they have been recklessly degrading the value of work, the incentive to work and the rewards of work,” he will add.
Whether Bush can be a credible messenger of that Washington-outsider message will be one of the key questions as he seeks the Republican nomination for president. A popular Republican knock against Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic frontrunner, has been that she is a creature of Washington; Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, will need to work to show some separation from the capital.
As he stresses a states-centric approach, Bush will also promote a big-tent vision for the Republican Party, inclusive of the party’s traditional base in addition to city-dwellers more commonly associated with Democrats.
“I know some in the media think conservatives don’t care about the cities. But they are wrong,” Bush will say. “We believe that every American and in every community has a right to pursue happiness. They have a right to rise.
“So I say: Let’s go where our ideas can matter most, where the failures of liberal government are most obvious,” he will add. “Let’s deliver real conservative success. And you know what will happen? We’ll create a whole lot of new conservatives.”
That message has also been a popular one thus far in this election cycle, with Sen. Rand Paul in particular taking pains to appear at inner-city or African-American venues.
Bush’s speech in Detroit will be his first major policy speech since announcing in December that he is exploring a bid for president. Since then, Bush has kept a laser focus on staffing up and on fundraising, crisscrossing the country to try to lock up major donors and post an eye-popping fundraising haul for the first quarter.
