Jeb Bush, a former governor with no experience in foreign policy and national defense, sought to fill in that gap in his resume by giving an address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. But most accounts concluded that he didn't do well.
He stumbled over names, spoke in generalized cliches of backward-looking rhetoric, and generally was not impressive.
His most memorable line -- as it was intended to be -- was: "I am my own man." He framed this by saying he loved his father and his brother, but his foreign policy would be shaped by his own ideas and his own experiences.
The problem is that -- on the same day -- he announced his list of foreign policy advisers, including his father's Secretary of State James Baker and the discredited Paul Wolfowitz, who was Deputy Secretary of Defense in his brother's Iraq war administration. Of the list of 21 foreign policy advisers released by Jeb Bush, 20 of them worked either for his dad or his brother, or both. Among campaign professionals, this is known as a"stepping on your message."
As Rachel Maddow put it: Aside from the merits of the policy positions but just as a campaign strategy, you can't say that your policies will be different from your brother's and father's, and you can name a foreign policy team made up almost exclusively of their advisers. BUT YOU CAN'T DO THEM BOTH ON THE SAME DAY !!
That just shows a lack of thinking and planning on the part of whoever is running this campaign. Or maybe they're in a bubble and don't even realize it was a major gaffe.
If that's what you want, vote for Jeb Bush in 2016. Realize that, if he is elected, it would mean that the last three Republicans to occupy the White House would all be named Bush. -- two brothers and a dad.
Ralph
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