A year ago if you asked me what the 2016 presidential election would look like I would have said plainly with a hint of disappointment, battle of the dynasties: another Bush versus another Clinton. And that would have been that. Gone are the days of such inevitability.
What once stewed so much cynicism in my dying heart, now brings forth subtle empathy for the man I had vowed to oppose. Here he is, days after a terrible loss in the Iowa caucus, setting his sights and optimism to a win in another state. In a short video of Jeb Bush speaking town hall style somewhere in New Hampshire, he takes on the passivity of a person faced with one too many disappointments in his life. In a speech may have at one point moved a crowd, he shares:
My pledge to you, I will be a commander-in-chief that will have the back of the military. I won’t trash talk, I won’t be a divider-in-chief or an agitator-in-chief. I won’t be out there blow-harding, talking a big game without backing it up. I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter, but send a signal that we’re prepared to act in the national security interest of this country to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world.
It sounds nice, but most political candidates before the age of Trump did. But on deaf ears it fell, a moment passed at the close of the speech and no one did the thing. The Bush legacy as been tarnished in two words, Bush begs the crowd:
Please clap.
I hate to say it but I feel something towards a Bush. I feel a feeling. Are Bushes real people too?