Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer for Politico.

“He’s not a conservative.” That’s Rush Limbaugh talking about Jeb Bush. “The ideal, the perfect ticket, for the 2016 election: Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush. Now, they can figure out who’s on top of the ticket on their own, but when you compare their positions, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, on the key, important issues, they are two peas in the same pod.” That, too.

“You know what Jeb Bush is? He’s an old-time liberal Republican.” That’s Mark Levin.


“If I had to bet right now, he’d be the nominee; and if I had to bet right now, he’ll lose.” And that’s Laura Ingraham.

This is what people mean when they say the man who would be the third Bush president has a talk radio problem. He has a talk radio problem, conservative activist and writer Brent Bozell said, because he has “a conservative problem.” He has a talk radio problem, Ingraham said, because he has an “electability” problem. “To me,” Ingraham told POLITICO, “Jeb is the easiest candidate for Hillary to beat by far because he divides the GOP at a time when we need a candidate who unifies the party. … He’s made it fairly clear that he believes he can win without conservatives.” The way Glenn Beck has put it: “I think Jeb Bush … despises people like us.”

Bush, who’s all but officially announced he’s running for president, has said he would want to run a “joyful” campaign. He’s said he would want to have “adult conversations.” It’s phrasing that hints at his general distaste for conservative talk radio. Some Bush allies privately refer to some of the medium’s leaders as “warlords”—a description meant to convey the unreasonable, unrealistic and pugilistic agenda of those who thrive off of conflict. Bush, on the other hand, believes a winning Republican campaign a decade and a half into the 21st century must promote inclusion and optimism, not discontent and fear. People think he’s too moderate in part because Limbaugh and the Limbaugh-like are saying he is. So here, almost a year before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, the primaries have started already—the fundraising and positioning of the so-called invisible primary, but a visible one, too, or at least an audible one. Call it the Rush primary.

Every Republican politician of a certain consequence over the last quarter-century has had to make a decision about how to engage with Limbaugh and the many others who populate America’s most redward airwaves. Bush right now isn’t talking about this because (1) it’s so early in the campaign the campaign can’t even technically be called a campaign and (2) that would be unwise. Limbaugh and his imitative competitors don’t need additional oxygen. But based on conversations with strategists and advisers connected to Bush, consultants, show hosts and industry watchers—and what he’s done over the past month—Bush won’t ignore talk radio.

If there is in fact a Rush primary, Bush, headstrong and self-assured, thinks he can win that one, too.

“While not a folksy storyteller, you want to listen to him not because he’s a preacher, but because he’s a teacher,” said David Aufhauser, a former senior Treasury official and Bush backer who co-hosted a fundraiser for him last month in McLean, Virginia. On talk radio, Aufhauser said, “in the long run, his scholar’s passion and personal will will win over even the most doubting of Thomases.”

“Jeb is a guy who knows what he’s talking about,” said Ed Rogers, the chairman of the lobbying and communications firm called the BGR Group. “He won’t shirk his critics or his opponents.”

***

“Talk radio is a lot more than Rush Limbaugh,” Bozell said. “Talk radio is several Rush Limbaughs, but in every media market, virtually every media market in America, there is what we call mini-Limbaughs—the local host who dominates.”

Limbaugh, though, is the host who’s been doing this the loudest and the longest.

He has the most history with the Bushes, too.

Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. | Getty photo

His first national show was August 1, 1988, too late in that year’s presidential election cycle to have any say or sway. But the next time around was different. And Limbaugh wasn’t sold on Jeb Bush’s father. George H.W. Bush, he thought, was an unrugged Ivy League elite, and one who ran against Ronald Reagan in the primaries in 1980 and decried Reagan’s trickle-down economic philosophy as “voodoo economics.” Limbaugh idolizes Reagan. He calls him Ronaldus Magnus. Early in 1992, Limbaugh took aim at a sitting Republican president, making it clear to his 13.5 million listeners that he preferred Pat Buchanan, Bush’s ultraconservative challenger in the primaries who said AIDS was “retribution for violating the laws of nature” and that he wanted Limbaugh to be his communications director.

The president’s response to this assault from his right flank was to make nice. He invited Limbaugh to the White House. Roger Ailes, a Bush adviser and a Limbaugh adviser, too, and now, of course, the boss of Fox News, played matchmaker. One night that June, Bush showed Limbaugh to the Lincoln Bedroom. He even toted his luggage.

“It was a thrill,” Limbaugh said the following week in an interview with The Associated Press. “The Lincoln Bedroom—that’s for people like Winston Churchill.”

Limbaugh insisted the visit wasn’t an effort to curry favor—“he never once asked about going on my show,” he said—but the courting of Limbaugh continued. He sat in the president’s box at the Astrodome in Houston at the Republican National Convention in August.

Limbaugh’s anti-Bush stance softened.

Bush lost, of course, and into the White House moved Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose power and shortcomings fueled Limbaugh’s ascent.

***

Russell from Memphis had a question. The caller had read a story in Newsweek—this was February 2008, and the headline was “ Why the Right Hates McCain”—and the story likened the 2008 John McCain campaign to the 1992 George H.W. Bush campaign. Russell wanted to know why.

“Because early on in 1992 in those primaries,” Limbaugh said, “I endorsed the wild-card candidacy of Pat Buchanan.”

“Oh, did you really?”

“I did, and I did this knowing full well Buchanan had no chance of winning the nomination. I was trying to infuse conservative debate in the primaries, because I figured if Bush was going to win again in ’92, he had to go back and do what he did in ’88 and start espousing conservatism, and I was right. And it all happened on Bush’s side too late.”

Now Russell from Memphis made the jump from Bush 41 to Bush 43. “Right,” the caller said, “and he obviously lost that reelection, but would you say that his son now, he was elected twice because he had more sound conservative principles?”

“George W. Bush?” Limbaugh said.

“Well, you know, it’s almost a replay. If you go back to the 2000 campaign, George Bush … was just smoking everybody in 2000 with money and came out of nowhere. I mean everybody was talking Jeb Bush, Jeb Bush is the next Bush that’s going to be in the White House. George W. comes out of there and starts going nuts. When he got close to getting the nomination or even after he had, he goes out, I think state of Washington, makes a speech and defines himself as a compassionate conservative, everybody went, ‘Oh, no, here we go again.’ From voodoo economics to compassionate conservative, because compassionate conservative is code word; compassionate conservative means there’s two kinds of conservatives, mean-spirited, extremist, racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe, and other conservatives who are nice people. Real conservatives said conservatism doesn’t need a modifier. Compassionate conservative is falling right into the liberal trap of accepting the notion that we’re all a bunch of scalawags. You put compassionate in front of it, oh, no, here’s a guy trying to pander to the left, oh, no. So there are some similarities. But Bush heard—and he stopped talking about it.”

Almost a replay.

From voodoo economics to compassionate conservative.

The two Bush presidents? Limbaugh sort of just put up with them—when he wasn’t spending the night at the White House, or talking not about them but to them.

***

“Oh, jeez,” Limbaugh said. “The president?”

“Rush Limbaugh?” the president said.

This was August 1, 2008, Limbaugh’s 20th anniversary show, and not quite six months after Russell from Memphis had called, prompting Limbaugh to list his grievances with the Bushes. Now Limbaugh was in his studio, in Palm Beach, Florida, and Bush 43 was on the line, calling from the family’s compound at Walker’s Point in Maine.

“Yes, sir, Mr. President,” Limbaugh said.

“President George W. Bush calling to congratulate you on 20 years of important and excellent broadcasting.”

“Well, thank you, sir. You’ve stunned me! I’m shocked. But thank you so much.”

“I’m here with a room full of admirers. There are two others that would like to speak to you and congratulate you, people who consider you friends and really appreciate the contribution you’ve made.”

“Well, thank you, sir, very much. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this and how much you’ve surprised me.”

They bantered for a bit about the economy and oil prices and then the president cut off Limbaugh when he started to ask something about China.

“But listen,” said Bush 43, “President 41. You might remember him.”

“I do,” Limbaugh said. “Yes, I do. We all do.”

“You know what? He remembers you.”

“Good,” Limbaugh said.

“Fondly, I might add. Anyway, here he is. Congratulations.”

George H.W. Bush got on the phone.

“Hey, Rush?”

“Mr. President, sir.”

“How are you doing?”

“I am never better. I’m so glad that you three called me. I’m stunned here. It’s great to hear from you.”

“I’ve got some advice for you.”

“Tell me.”

“Slow down your backswing.”

The two of them laughed. They small-talked until the 41st president put on his second son.

“… Jeb, Governor Jeb, wants to speak to you.”

“Hey, Rush,” Jeb said. “Congratulations on your longevity.”

“Thank you, sir, very much. This is a thrill.”

“One of the highlights, one of the great things about your show is it’s broadcast in the Sunshine State, for which a whole lot of Floridians are very grateful, including me.”

“What’s your future?” Limbaugh asked. “What are you going to do?”

Borrowing a bit of the Limbaugh lexicon, let me translate that for you. Are you going to run for president, and when?

“I’m staying below the radar. That’s what I’m doing. I love policy, and I have an education policy to try to help folks that are running for office be bold on education reform, which I think is a huge challenge and a great opportunity for our country. So my political stuff is really focused on that, which I love.”

“Well, good,” Limbaugh said. “Keep at it, because if there’s something that needs reform in this country, it’s certainly that.”

“Absolutely.”

Not six months after the call, less than a week before Obama moved in, Limbaugh was invited to the White House again—this time by George W. Bush. The Lincoln Bedroom wasn’t involved, but lunch turned into something of a surprise birthday party. Limbaugh was 58. Dessert was a little chocolate microphone.

***

Jeb and Rush. Rush and Jeb. Limbaugh was born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on January 12, 1951, and Bush was born in Midland, Texas, on February 11, 1953. They’re contemporaries. They both hero-worship their father. They both have workaholic tendencies and want people to know it. They both play golf. And they agree on a lot. Pro-choice on schools, anti-choice on abortions, anti-affirmative action, anti-tax, smaller government is better government—many of the basic tenets of Bush’s tenure as governor lined up with Limbaugh’s list of ”Undeniable Truths.”

Limbaugh started living in Florida in 1996. Bush was elected to be governor in 1998. Bush considers himself, and others consider Bush, the most powerful, most conservative governor in the history of the state. In 2004, two years after he was reelected in a landslide, Bush called into Limbaugh’s show to help his brother’s presidential reelection efforts.

“Our base is just fired up,” Bush told Limbaugh, “thanks to your help and a lot of others.”

“It’s great to talk to you,” Limbaugh said to Bush at the end of that call.

“Well, thank you, Rush,” Bush said, “and we’re—I’m at least—very proud that you’re a Floridian.”

On May 5, 2009, a caller asked Limbaugh if he thought Jeb Bush was a conservative. Limbaugh said yes. “Jeb, I think, is.”

On December 16, 2014, Limbaugh said no. “He’s not a conservative.”

What happened?

As the country’s gotten more complicated, their public relationship has gotten more complicated, too.

The crux of the split is a function of their fundamentally at-odds views about immigration—of the very notion, actually, of America’s changing demographics. They both think this country is “exceptional,” but for divergent reasons—Limbaugh extolling “a distinct, singular American culture,” Bush embracing its increasingly multiracial, multi-ethnic makeup. They both moved to South Florida, but to very different parts, and for very different reasons. Bush moved to Miami because he has a Mexican wife and three brown-skinned children. Limbaugh moved to Palm Beach because he’s rich.

Since Aug. 1, 2008— congratulations on your … longevity—Jeb Bush has been saying things that for Rush Limbaugh are repellent.

He has said “way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant.” He has said Republicans need to show more “sensitivity to the immigrant experience.” He has said “our demographics are changing and we have to change not necessarily our core beliefs, but the tone of our message.” He has said coming to this country, even illegally, to search for a better life for one’s children is “an act of love.” He has said Republicans lost the presidential election in 2012 because “our brand is perceived to be tarnished, to be reactionary.”

“I think a lot of people are fearful of change, and immigration brings change,” he has said. “I’m sympathetic for people that are—that are thinking that somehow our culture changes with immigration in a bad way. Because history would suggest that it has made our culture unique and special and it’s enriched us in ways that are immeasurable.”

“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,” he has said.

And Limbaugh?

“It’s all about immigration,” Limbaugh said in August 2012. “Jeb Bush thinks it’s all about immigration. … They’re hell-bent on immigration, these establishment guys.”

“Jeb Bush says Republicans are too reactionary, or too many Republicans are too reactionary,” Limbaugh said in June 2013. “You know what he means? Talk radio.”

“Jeb thinks America is flawed, and he wants it to be something else,” Limbaugh said last month. “He wants it to be more like the place he chose to live, the Latin American enclave in Miami.”

“I mean, to Jeb and Obama,” he said a few weeks later, “there’s no such thing as an illegal immigrant.”

Back in ’92, in the primaries, Limbaugh looked at Jeb Bush’s father and went with Pat Buchanan; now, 23 years later, Limbaugh is looking at Jeb Bush and going with Scott Walker, whom he considers “the blueprint for the Republican Party if they are serious about beating the left.”

But the younger Bush has something the elder Bush did not.

History to study.

***

The biggest difference between 1992 and today?

“What you know now that you didn’t in the time of George H.W. Bush is how the Limbaugh dynamic plays out,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. “The Limbaugh equation is clearer to a Republican candidate.”

“If Rush gets after you, you have a headwind; if Rush supports you, you have a tailwind,” said Rogers, from the BGR Group. “Are either of those determinative? Probably not.”

“He’s not a giant killer,” said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University who has studied Limbaugh and talk radio.

“I think all talk show voices have been diminished a little bit with the rise of so many different channels of media,” said Michael Harrison, the editor and publisher of Talkers magazine. “I think there are fewer kingmakers. That said, I think Rush is still the most influential talk show host in America.”

Jeb Bush, though, knows what his father did, and what happened.

He knows what happened in 1996. He knows Bob Dole called Limbaugh’s show the day after a so-so debate performance against Bill Clinton. “Rush,” Dole said, “I think we nailed him last night on a few things.” Limbaugh was unconvinced.

He knows what happened in 2008. He knows Limbaugh said he’d “rather see the Democrats in the White House” than John McCain. He knows McCain said he didn’t listen to Limbaugh because he wasn’t a masochist.

He knows what happened in 2012. He knows that Mitt Romney had a chance to take on Limbaugh after Limbaugh called Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke a “slut,” but didn’t, even after former Romney adviser Mike Murphy urged him to do so because he saw Limbaugh as “ a paper tiger.”

He knows that Limbaugh knocked all three candidates and that all three men won the nomination anyway.

He knows Limbaugh matters, like a lot of things matter, but he knows, too, that his ratings are down.

He knows he was a much more conservative governor in Florida than Reagan, Limbaugh’s Ronaldus Magnus, was in California.

He knows Republicans had far more success at winning the White House in the more than 30 years before Limbaugh wrote his best-selling book The Way Things Ought to Be than they’ve had in the nearly 30 years since.

He knows that what Limbaugh says changes when people actually go on his show, that he turns tame, or at least has, like when his phone rings and it’s two presidents and a potential third, calling from their vacation place in Maine. I’m overwhelmed. This is a thrill.

And Jeb Bush, whose top strategist is the same Mike Murphy who four years ago saw Limbaugh as a “paper tiger,” knows the invisible primary, the raising of massive amounts of money, especially at this early juncture, is way, way, way more important than the audible primary, the Rush primary—and that he’s winning the mess out of the former. Money beats talk. And it’s not a fair fight. It’s not even close. That’s the way things … are.

***

So how will Jeb Bush engage with Limbaugh, who didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment, and talk radio in general?

“I wouldn’t say go kiss his big fat ring, you know, but certainly he could acknowledge Limbaugh’s role as an opinion leader, a major opinion leader, in the conservative movement,” said Mark Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who wrote an essay in 2013 titled “ Right-w ing talk shows turned White House b lue.” “Somehow he has to strike the right balance without seeming obsequious.”

“I think it’s important to court him privately,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said.

That should be done to try to set some ground rules, said Bill Cortese, another Republican strategist: “Look, we don’t care if you throw the fastball—just don’t throw it at our head, you know?”

The last month has been revealing.

In late February, Bush went on the air with Hugh Hewitt, his first major talk show hit as an all-but-official presidential candidate. Smart move. Hewitt, who in the past has preferred establishment candidates, is known among conservative hosts as one who has substantive conversations.

Bush went to the Conservative Political Action Conference, too, the confab of conservative activists in National Harbor, Maryland. Before his turn on the stage in the main ballroom, the crowd jeered mentions of his name. “I don’t see him winning,” Donald Trump said. “Mexico’s not our friend,” he added. Ingraham dittoed Limbaugh, saying there’s no difference between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. “CLUSH 2016,” she said, offering a suggestion for bumper stickers. “Let’s pick a conservative Republican president,” Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said. By the time Bush was up, the room was packed and felt different than it felt at any other point in the three-day conference. Volatile. Unpredictable. He took the stage to some cheers but more boos and jeers. People stood and stayed standing.

Sean Hannity, No. 2 to Limbaugh on the conservative talk totem pole, asked Bush questions.

Hannity, who through a spokesman said he didn’t want to comment for this story, asked Bush about his support for immigration reform. He said he supported “a path to legal status.” Boos and jeers.

Hannity asked him about his record as governor in Florida.

“Do you stand by the decision, driver’s licenses for illegals?”

“Didn’t happen,” Bush said.

“Didn’t happen, but you tried,” Hannity said. “And the other decision about in-state tuition breaks for children” of undocumented parents.

“I do,” Bush said. “I do.” Boos and jeers.

“In fact,” Bush said, “the in-state tuition was passed this year, by one of the most conservative state legislatures, I might add, and a conservative governor—signed into law this last year.”

That made the boos and jeers turn into something else. Silence.

After almost half an hour of jousting with Hannity, Bush didn’t hit “radio row” outside the main ballroom, like some of the other speakers did. Like Walker did. Bush went to a different ballroom to meet with gathered supporters wearing buttons and stickers that said “Jeb!” Emerging from behind a curtain, he stepped onto another stage, this one smaller. He told them the charged atmosphere of the Hannity back-and-forth was “raucous and wild” and that he “loved it.”

The next week he went on Radio Iowa. “There’s nothing in my record that would suggest that I’m a moderate,” he said, speaking to the skeptical listeners of the important state where the politics are very red and the people are very white.

He said he doesn’t accept “the narrative.” He used the word “persuade.”

“I’m going to go make my case,” he said.

“I question the hypothesis that Jeb Bush has a talk radio problem,” major Republican bundler and longtime Bush family friend Fred Malek told POLITICO. “I think he’s fine in this regard.”

“I don’t think Jeb has a talk radio problem,” Hewitt added in an interview. “People who go on talk radio don’t have a talk radio problem. People who don’t go on talk radio have a talk radio problem.”

“I think it’s incumbent upon him to continue to do what he did at CPAC,” Sirius XM Patriot Radio host Tom Basile said. “He went into CPAC, a rough crowd, and I think he got people to listen to what he had to say.”

“Gov. Bush has arguably the best record of conservative reform of any governor in the country,” Bush spokesman Tim Miller said. “That’s something he’ll continue to talk about and that grass-roots conservatives have responded positively to in his recent travel.”

Can you run a “joyful” campaign and go on talk radio? Can you have “adult conversations”?

“When you talk about your record and you’re Jeb Bush, absolutely,” said Juleanna Glover, a longtime consultant and a Bush supporter. She cited his “disposition and demeanor” and called him “an effervescent policy wonk.”

“An effervescent policy wonk” whom Limbaugh once considered a conservative. A little something to file away at Jeb HQ. Could be another silencer.

“I think talk radio for Governor Bush,” Glover said, “is going to be an incredibly valuable medium for him— when he’s talking.”

Jeb Bush keeps telling people he’s not the same as his father and his brother, and this is one way it’s true. It’s hard to imagine President Jeb Bush carrying Limbaugh’s luggage to the Lincoln Bedroom. It’s hard to imagine President Jeb Bush presenting Limbaugh with a little chocolate microphone. His father wanted to make friends. His brother wanted to be buds. The man who would be the third Bush president? He wants to win arguments. He wants to be right.