Jeb Bush, the son of one president and the brother of another, formally launched his campaign to put a third Bush in the White House by flaunting his experience as a governor and promising to be an inclusive president who "will take nothing and no one for granted".
Speaking at a community college in Miami, the Republican railed against the Washington political establishment and touted his pro-business, small-government record of cutting taxes and using his veto to stop “needless spending” when he ran Florida from 1999 to 2007.
“We will take Washington, the static capital of this dynamic country, out of the business of causing problems,” the former two-term governor told an estimated 3,000 supporters at Miami Dade College.
Attempting to shift a staid campaign up a gear with his official declaration, Mr Bush painted himself as a candidate intent on fighting for everyone in a manifesto that appears to re-cast his brother’s brand of compassionate conservatism that twice won him the White House.
Bush and other speakers switched regularly into Spanish, giving the rally a diverse ethnic feel in a nod to his Mexican-American family and influential Hispanic voters he must woo to win the presidency.
“In any language, my message will be an optimistic one because I am certain that we can make the decades just ahead in America the greatest time ever to be alive in the world,” he said.
Social ladder
He pledged to correct the economic drag many face in climbing the social ladder and to change approach on American foreign policy.
“We will lift our sights again, make opportunity common again, get events in the world moving our way again,” he said, speaking against a backdrop of American flags and a podium of cheering supporters.
John Ellis Bush – or for the purposes of this campaign, simply “Jeb!” – has slipped back from being the presumed Republican frontrunner in the election when he lit up the race six months ago with his announcement that he was exploring a presidential run.
His early start was intended to scare off rivals but his campaign has foundered and he has lost a clear lead in a large field of at least 15.
A reshuffle of senior advisers and word that he may not reach an ambitious $100 million fundraising target has left his campaign spluttering before it was even officially launched. Stumbling over questions about his brother’s war record in Iraq has left him among a big group of candidates clumped at the top of the polls.
The newly declared candidates didn’t shy away from foreign policy, an area that has, for some, made the Bush name toxic.
At his most forceful in his speech, Bush attacked president Barack Obama and his foreign policy team, saying they had "been so eager to be the history makers that they have failed to be the peacemakers".
“With their phone-it-in-foreign policy, the Obama-Clinton-Kerry team is leaving a legacy of crises uncontained, violence unopposed, enemies unnamed, friends undefended and alliances unravelling,” he said, promising to “rebuild our vital relationships” starting with Israel.
Brother’s exploits
He did touch on his brother’s exploits in the White House but he didn’t ignore the past presidents in his family either.
“In this country of ours, the most improbable things can happen,” he said. “Take that from a guy who met his first president on the day he was born and his second on the day he was brought home from hospital.”
His mother, 90-year-old Barbara Bush, was in the audience, but his father and brother were not present.
Being a Bush may not be all negative for Jeb. For the first time in a decade, more Americans like George W Bush than dislike him, according to a CNN/ORC poll published earlier this month.
“I like the idea of a fresh face but I think our country needs a leader who has experience,” said Pam Northrup (53), an administrator at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, going into the launch rally.
Vladimir Escoriza (51), a Cuban immigrant, thinks Jeb can replicate the good job he did as governor on the national stage. “Each person is their own person,” he said.
“The Bush name is a double-edged sword: it gives him a leg up and people usually vote for someone they have heard of before,” said Republican strategist John Feehery. “But there is obviously baggage that comes with. He has to focus more on being Jeb than being Bush.”
Six years younger than his brother, Jeb has stuck with his tried-and-tested approach in Florida by dropping the Bush name from his “Jeb! 2016” logo, the exclamation mark an attempt to inject an energy into his campaign that has so far been anything but vibrant.
Defensive and awkward
His responses to on-the-stump questions, notably with a student Democrat at the University of Nevada last month, challenging him with, “Your brother created ISIS”, have come across as defensive, awkward and ham-fisted.
Monday’s high-energy rally was in marked contrast to previous campaign events, with Bush at times seeming unsure of how to react to the cacophony of sustained applause and prolonged chanting.
Where his brother was the gregarious back-slapper, Jeb is the chin-stroking intellectual. In a pre-launch interview on Sunday, he said that he is “kind of introverted” but that he was learning to “show my heart”.
“I will run with heart. I will run to win,” he said in his speech, echoing the theme.
Jeb has not distanced himself from moderate positions he holds on immigration and education that alienate many conservatives who have an out-sized influence in Iowa, the first state to pick candidates for the parties.
Reacting to a group of pro-immigration demonstrators who crashed his rally, Bush went off script: “The next president of the United States will pass meaningful immigration reform so that it will be solved, not by executive order!” – a dig at Obama’s approach.
He also shifted right, stamping his conservative credentials by attacking Clinton for the second time in his speech, defending religious beliefs where they run contrary to “the progressive agenda”.
Failing to poll well in Iowa or win one of the other early voting states of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada could hurt him.
“If he doesn’t do well, then people will make the assumption very quickly that the Bush name is not yet optimal,” said Susan MacManus, professor of political science at the University of South Florida.
