Yes, Jeb Bush is running for GOP nomination. No, he is not for the Presidency
It is pretty clear to me J’bush, onetime “sane” Republican, is not running to be the President. On Monday he flipped and stated that he does not support a “pathway to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., a position other Republicans have taken, at this point, as a given.
So what’s the deal? J’bush knows that giving a path to legal permanent residency [AND THE VOTE] to 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country is a non-starter with the base, so he has cooked up this new thing.
The J’bush plan will not to deport undocumented immigrants BUT will also NEVER give them the chance to become fully American. It is American apartheid plain and simple. Brilliant! He gets to go out to Iowa and tell the nutbags, “No path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Period!”
So that’s the strategy for winning the primary, but how does that translate to the general? I’ll let a kos diarist delivery the bad news:
Except that someone must’ve reminded Jeb about those demographic realities. Remember, if everyone voted in 2016 exactly how they voted in 2012, the Democratic victory margin would go up from 3.9 points to 5.2. And Bush’s actions Monday did nothing to mitigate that 1.3-point demographic disadvantage that he would face. In fact, it exacerbated it.
So maybe J’bush buys into the “Etch-a-sketch” worldview of primaries versus general elections. Or maybe he thinks the Republican base will be so fired up to defeat Hillary, it doesn’t matter if he pisses on a huge demographic. Who knows?
“So that’s the strategy for winning the primary, but how does that translate to the general?”
Actually it’s a pretty good strategy. He will be positioning himself against other pandering Republicans who have insincerely flipflopped to support for citizenship. If he doesn’t win the primary he isn’t even in the game.
And by election time immigration reform (or whatever masquerades as reform) will likely be a settled issue. Jeb’s 2013 position on immigration reform will likely be a non-issue. If he loses the general, it won’t be because he didn’t support citizenship.
The good news is that he might force the winning primary candidate to also oppose citizenship, which will weaken the primary winner for the general.
And Jeb’s position is actually the ultimate Republican position – it maintains the illegal immigrants as a permanant underclass and LEGAL source of underpaid and exploited labor.
If this starts a stampede to the right on immigration among wingnuts vying for the nomination, it is a win/win.