As part of announcing his 2016 presidential candidacy, Jeb Bush released a video entitled “Making a Difference.” The video spotlights how Bush’s work as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007 affected four people: a low-income student, a low-skilled worker, a mother whose child is disabled and a woman who was the victim of domestic violence.
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“My core beliefs start with the premise that the most vulnerable in our society should be in the front of the line, not the back,” Bush says in the video. “The barriers right now on people rising up is the great challenge of our time.”
The video is aimed particularly at women voters, underscoring the image Bush wants to project of himself as a deeply compassionate governor. “If you wonder what Jeb means when he talks about showing his heart, here you go.” senior Bush aide David Kochel tweeted when the video was released Sunday.
But to a number of Republican strategists, some associated with other presidential campaigns and some not, the video shows a GOP politician ignoring the challenge of winning his own party’s primaries before running a general election campaign. In addition, the video stresses Bush’s goodness so heavily that the strategists wonder whether even a positive attribute, like compassion, can be overdone. And finally, the video raises the question of whether an appeal to women voters can be taken so far that it gives a campaign ad an almost feminized quality.
“This is a general election video consistent with their theory that you have to be willing to lose the primary in order to win the general,” says one GOP strategist. “They seem to want to really test that premise.”
“My guess is that they are trying to make the point that Jeb is different from past Republican campaigns, and that’s why he can win,” the strategist adds.
“It’s geared toward a general election, that is, a more moderate female voter,” adds another GOP politico.
From a third Republican strategist: “This is a general-election bid that doesn’t address his biggest problems: 1) not exciting anyone, 2) not a conservative, 3) past, not future. It goes to Jeb’s expressed view that Mitt Romney lost because he wasn’t moderate enough.”
In a visit to May New Hampshire last month, Bush suggested that Romney’s problem was that he did not stress his own compassion and generosity before offering his campaign’s platforms. Romney “was a successful, loving, caring, generous man — and he never showed it,” Bush said. Voters, Bush continued, try to figure out whether a candidate understands their concerns before they consider the candidate’s programs: “Does he care about me? Do you like him? Does he have a sense of humor? Does he understand the fight I’m in? There’s some really basic questions you have to get to first before you get to the five-point plan to help people out.”
That’s what the new “Making a Difference” video is about. It’s a picture of Jeb Bush caring so much that no one could ever even suspect that he doesn’t understand voters’ problems. And the Bush campaign doesn’t mind at all if other Republicans don’t like it. “No, we have no concerns about Jeb being seen as a leader who has accomplishments that helped women achieve their dreams,” said a campaign aide.
