Jeb Bush gave a substantive reason today why he doesn't hold huge ambitions for VP, and in doing so, continued a pattern we've seen this cycle.
He told ABC News that, hypothetically, he'd accept a deal agreeing to $1 of "revenue enhancement" if it also included $10 in spending cuts.
“This will prove I’m not running for anything,” Bush said.
“If you could bring to me a majority of people to say that we are going to have ten dollars of spending cuts for one dollar of revenue enhancement, put me in coach.”
If you remember, none of the '12 candidates were willing to support that concept when asked in a presidential debate.
Now I say this is a trilogy, because it's at least the third time that Jeb's broken with the base to prove that he doesn't have a passion to run.
During the red meat heat of the GOP primary, he said:
"I used to be a conservative and I watch these debates and I'm wondering, I don't think I've changed, but it's a little troubling sometimes when people are appealing to people's fears and emotion rather than trying to get them to look over the horizon for a broader perspective and that's kind of where we are."
And... back in December 2010 (when conservatives were pining for him to run), Jeb told them his opposition to Arizona's immigration law was proof he wasn't interested in the pandering that politics sometimes requires.
While he is sympathetic to the plight of Arizona officials forced to deal with all the problems linked to a porous frontier, he believes there are solutions other than a law criminalizing illegal immigrants, he said.
"It's the wrong approach," he said. "The net result is not much has been done."
.... ....[Bush] quipped that it was obvious he was not running for office, noting that his views differed from those of most of his Republican colleagues.
Obviously, 2016 or 2020 is a long way off and he might be interested in a presidential run down the road, but for at least now, he doesn't seem terribly interested in beefing up his credentials with the GOP base (they're much softer than intellectual conservatives usually admit).
