Conservative blogger and radio host Erick Erickson is apparently seeing Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush in a new light.
Erickson, who remains an influential figure in Republican politics and grassroots conservative activism, wrote on his Red State website that Bush’s presidential announcement Monday was “a solid one.”
“[Bush] gave a defense of limited government, a defense of school choice, and a defense of religious liberty,” Erickson wrote Tuesday on Red State. “He gave a stinging and damning indictment of the past seven years without just throwing [President] Obama-bashing red meat to the crowd. And he did one key thing he needs to do going forward — focus on what was a very conservative record as Florida’s governor while ignoring his more recent statements that give conservatives justified heartburn.”
Erickson said that he wasn’t sure Bush’s speech was “enough” to appease some Republican critics who are skeptical of Bush’s conservative bona fides, but said “his debut as an official presidential candidate was a solid one.”
Erickson’s blog post is a marked shift in tone from a separate one he wrote in April last year, before Bush had established a presidential exploratory committee.
“I think Jeb Bush’s time to run is over,” Erickson wrote at the time. “We have an amazing crop of potential candidates and a far deeper bench than the Democrats. Bush running in 2016 would be a distraction in media coverage from a solid crop of candidates. Frankly, the idea of his candidacy is just a security blanket for the Linuses of the party who feel their control slipping away.”
In May of this year, Erickson confirmed that Bush would speak at Red State’s annual “RedState Gathering,” along with several other Republican presidential candidates. The event takes place in August.
In an email, Erickson maintained that he has been consistent in his thoughts about Bush. “I haven’t switched,” he told the Washington Examiner media desk. “As I noted in the piece, it was a legit opener but he still has to explain why a guy who hasn’t been in office since January 2007 should be considered a better choice than current governors.”
