Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush has kept the family political dynasty alive — at the price of aligning with that dynasty’s foremost Republican critic, President Trump.
Thought to be endangered, Bush easily survived a GOP primary challenge from former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, avoiding a runoff by receiving more than 58 percent of the vote and winning by nearly 30 points.
Bush benefited from receiving an endorsement from Trump. “Texas LC George P. Bush backed me when it wasn’t the politically correct thing to do, and I back him now,” the president tweeted.
Trump was referring to Bush’s August 2016 endorsement of his successful presidential candidacy. “From Team Bush, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what?” the Texas land commissioner told state GOP executive committee members at the time. “You get back up and you help the man that won and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton.”
George P.’s father, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, pointedly declined to endorse Trump after losing the 2016 Republican presidential race, saying in a Facebook post that the presidency requires “great fortitude and humility and the temperament.”
“Donald Trump has not demonstrated that temperament or strength of character,” the elder Bush said. “He has not displayed a respect for the Constitution. And, he is not a consistent conservative. These are all reasons why I cannot support his candidacy.”
Former President George W. Bush, the Texas land commissioner’s uncle, also did not endorse Trump. A family spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal after the election that the former president and former first lady Laura Bush did not vote for either Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The 43rd president has more been more critical of Trump in public than he ever was of his immediate successor, former President Barack Obama. “He deserves my silence,” Bush said of Obama in a March 2009 speech. “There’s plenty of critics in the arena. I think it’s time for the ex-president to tap dance off the stage and let the current president have a go at solving the world’s problems.”
Yet as recently as this week, Bush 43 was quoted as saying Trump “[s]orta makes me look pretty good.”
Former President George H.W. Bush, the Texas land commissioner’s grandfather, reportedly called Trump a “blowhard” and has even been rumored to have voted for Clinton instead. While that is unconfirmed, Bush 41 joined his sons in not publicly backing Trump during the campaign.
So George P. Bush to some extent broke with family tradition by boarding, however reluctantly, the Trump Train. A reporter captured some of the tension in a brief, testy exchange with Jeb Bush at his son’s victory party.
“I’m a father,” said the former Florida governor and presidential candidate. “And I love my son. And I’m so happy he won … I’m grateful for President Trump endorsing my son.”
“Whatever disputes I have with the president will remain quietly in my head today,” he added.
Trump was a fierce critic of the Bush family during the 2016 primaries. He frequently used “low energy” Jeb as a foil in the GOP debates and campaigned against Bush 43’s policies on trade, Iraq, and immigration.
The former president and his brother campaigned together in South Carolina after a debate in which Trump repeatedly called the Iraq war a “disaster” and questioned whether Bush 43 had really kept the country safe. Trump won the state’s primary and Jeb dropped out.
After anti-Trump statements from Bush 41 and Bush 43 contained in historian Mark Updegrove’s book The Last Republicans were reported in the press, Trump shot back, “I’ll comment after we come back [from a foreign trip]. I don’t need headlines. I don’t want to make their move successful.”
George P. Bush isn’t the only Texas Republican to patch up a family feud with Trump. Sen. Ted Cruz, who weathered attacks on his wife and father during a contentious GOP nominating contest, overwhelmingly won his primary Tuesday night. Cruz and Trump do not appear to be close personally, but they have frequently been aligned in Washington.
But the Bush family dynasty dates back to the 1950s, with the late Sen. Prescott Bush, R-Conn., George P.’s great-grandfather. Bushes have been on six of the last ten Republican presidential tickets, five of them successful.
For the time being, the GOP is Trump’s party. Not even an ambitious Bush can deny it.
