New York Times Butters Up Jeb Bush to Hit 'His Party's Hard-Liners' -- But How Long Would NYT Flattery Last?

December 14th, 2014 8:23 AM

Saturday's front-page report by Jonathan Martin on Jeb Bush, "Looking to ’16, Another Bush Stakes Out the Middle Ground," marks the latest New York Times profile to flatter the moderate Republican, at least in comparison to those "hard-line" right-wing conservatives (though they still find Jeb "deeply conservative" on taxes and abortion.)

Bush, a two-term former governor of Florida, has indeed taken pains to separate himself from conservatives on Common Core education "reform" and especially on amnesty for illegals, and claimed during the 2012 presidential campaign that his father, former President George Bush, and Ronald Reagan would struggle in today's GOP, "an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for disagreement." That would certainly explain profiles like the one on Saturday. From Martin's front-page story:

When former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida quietly visited Senator John McCain in his Capitol Hill office this fall, discussion turned to a subject of increasing interest to Mr. Bush: how to run for president without pandering to the party’s conservative base.

“I just said to him, ‘I think if you look back, despite the far right’s complaints, it is the centrist that wins the nomination,’ ” Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he told Mr. Bush.

In the past few weeks, Mr. Bush has moved toward a run for the White House. His family’s resistance has receded. His advisers are seeking staff. And the former governor is even slimming down, shedding about 15 pounds thanks to frequent swimming and personal training sessions after a knee operation last year.