Bush says his connection with George W. and George H.W. Bush can only help. Jeb Bush sees no family 'baggage'

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, speaking on a bevy of news programs Sunday morning, declined to address his own future but said he didn’t think any run for the presidency would be dragged down by “Bush baggage.”

As part of a tour on behalf of his new book “Immigration Wars,” the Republican notable was seen and heard on the five big morning shows (“Face the Nation,” “State of the Union,” Fox News Sunday,” “Meet the Press” and “This Week”), as well as Univision. Though the prime topic of the book is immigration, the discussion Sunday kept circling back to electoral politics, particularly his own ambitions.


Bush declined to discuss any decisions he might have made about the 2016 presidential election — it was too soon, he told Candy Crowley on CNN’s “State of the Union” and others on subsequent programs — but did say he thought his family name would not be a hindrance for him.

“I don’t think there’s any Bush baggage at all,” Bush said on “Fox News Sunday” when confronted with a poll that showed almost a full majority of Americans have an unfavorable impression of former President George W. Bush.

He told host Chris Wallace: “I love my brother, I’m proud of his accomplishments. I love my dad. I am proud to be a Bush.”

The topic came up on NBC’s “Meet the Press” as well.

“I think history will be kind to George W. Bush,” he said on that program.

The former Florida governor said that his father, George H.W. Bush, was initially poorly regarded in the aftermath of his loss to Bill Clinton in 1992. But now, Bush said, his father’s image has been rehabilitated.

“A lot of his accomplishments were overshadowed by the ‘92 election. And over time, people began to view my dad in a different light than they did shortly after his tenure as president,” he said on “Meet the Press.”

“Everywhere I go at least, he’s a beloved guy,” Bush said about his 88-year-old father. He predicted something similar would happen to his brother, who left office in January 2009.

Meanwhile, Bush pushed back on those who saw his new book as something meant to open a path to the presidency.

Bush said those who ascribe political motivations to his book, written with Clint Bolick, are operating in “Washington world.”

“Yeah, see that’s the Washington world, the world of everything has to have a personal political ambition, motive,” Bush said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “That’s not the case.”

He did say repeatedly that he would address the possibility of running for president when he thought it was time — and that the time was not now.

“My big decision was to force myself not to think about it until it’s time, the proper time to think about it, which is out into the future,” he said on “Face the Nation.” “We just had an election. Four years is a long way from now, and I think it’s better to stay focused on the things that I’m doing now.”

He made a similar assertion on “State of the Union”: “When I go through that process, I’ll let you know. I don’t know why there has to be a lot of mystery about this. This is kind of how it normally works, I believe.”

And Bush did say that if he were to run, it was not because he felt compelled to because of his family name:

“If I run for president,” he said on Fox News Sunday, “it’s not because of something in my DNA that compels me to do it. It would be that it’s the right thing to do for my family, that the conditions are right, and that I have something to offer.”

Another theme that ran through the questioning was whether some of the post-election efforts at immigration reform had made his book prematurely outdated.

“This book was written last year at a time when the tenor of the debate on immigration was dramatically different than it is today,” he said on CNN. “And there were a lot of people that may have believed in comprehensive reform but hadn’t been supportive of it. And I’m encouraged to see that that’s not the case now.”

This search for immigration reform also gave him hope that other things might be accomplished in Washington.

“This is a very encouraging time, because if we can get immigration right, imagine, there’s possibilities of cats and dogs living with one another in other policy areas as well,” Bush said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.

A longtime champion of immigration reform, Bush has come under scrutiny for his position on a path to citizenship for undocumented workers, a policy he advocated in the past, but on which he then appeared to take a different approach in his book. But Bush said that his position on the issue hasn’t changed.

“The worst thing,” he said, “that we could do is to pass a set of laws and have the exact same problem we had in the late 1980s, where there was not the enforcement and it was easier to come legally than illegally.”

“So, we need complete reform, and if that happens, the work being done in Washington right now —the effort is to create this disincentive for illegal immigration, and incentive for legal immigration — then I would support a path to citizenship.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is involved in the bipartisan effort to find an immigration deal, was critical in the wake of Bush’s book release last week, but Bush said they have since smoothed things over. He had warm words for the lawmakers in D.C. who are focused on the issue.

“The fantastic thing is there are now people willing to take a risk politically for sound, thoughtful policy on a complex issue,” Bush said of what that group of senators, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), is working on. “That’s exactly what we need in Washington, D.C. and so I applaud what Sen. Rubio is doing, the other members of the so-called Gang of Eight, they’re making a major contribution.”

In general, Bush told CNN’s Crowley, now is an exciting time for the GOP.

“So, who knows what the future holds for me,” he said. “But I’m excited to be seeing the renewal of the conservative movement and the Republican Party, and I want to be part of that for sure.”