OXON HILL, Md. — Facing a skeptical and occasionally hostile crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, Jeb Bush did not water down his positions on immigration and Common Core, two of the most fiery issues among conservatives.
Bush, a former Florida governor, has taken heat for backing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants already in the U.S., and for supporting the Common Core education standards. But Bush stood by both stances during an onstage exchange with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
When Bush began to broach the subject of citizenship for undocumented immigrants, a series of boos erupted from the crowd. “I know there’s disagreement here,” Bush conceded, to which some members of the crowd responded, “Yes!”
“The simple fact is, there is no plan to deport 11 million people,” Bush said. “We should give them a path to legal status where they work, where they don’t receive government handouts, where the don’t break the law, where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society.”
When Hannity later asked Bush whether the Common Core standards are a “government takeover of education,” Bush waved his hands aggressively. “No,” Bush responded.
Having fared well with big-money GOP donors and attracted some of the party’s most talented operatives to join his team, many Republicans wondered how Bush would fare in unfriendly territory at CPAC.
The venue has proved challenging for moderate Republicans in the past. In 2012, Mitt Romney raised eyebrows when he went off-script to describe himself as “severely conservative.”
Anticipating a tough audience, and perhaps cognizant of his uneven performances in recent prepared speeches, Bush chose a question-and-answer format instead of a prepared speech.
The discussion was punctuated by loud heckling and a stream of audience members walking out of the room, a stunt orchestrated via social media in advance. Outside of the ballroom, some anti-Bush protesters yelled, “No more Bushes!”
But some Bush skeptics stuck around to hear what he had to say. Kevin Sexton, a supporter of Sen. Rand Paul, was pleasantly surprised by what he heard.
“I think he conveyed a message really well, even some of his more unpopular messages,” Sexton, 21, said of Bush. “My only fear is that his last name may scare away some voters who were unhappy either with George W. Bush or his father. That is my only fear. I think he would make a great president, but I am nervous about the name.”
In his remarks, Bush attempted to continue to distance himself from his father and brother. “I’m not an expert on the ways of Washington,” Bush said at one point, perhaps a stretch for anyone related to two former presidents.
When discussing how the president might have stemmed the flow of children trying to cross the border into the U.S., Bush said he would have sent “a clear signal that this was a dangerous thing to do and the wrong thing to do.”
“That’s precisely what Bush 41 did with the Haitians,” Bush said, referring to his father, George H.W. Bush.
And as he argued for the U.S. to take a proactive role abroad, Bush cited Iraq.
“As we pull back, voids are filled,” Bush said. “Iraq is the best example of that.”
Bush said in a recent foreign policy speech that he is his “own man,” and Hannity pressed Bush on that remark.
“If I run for president, I have to show what’s in my heart,” Bush said. “It can’t be about the past.”
