Despite his mother’s suggestion that he give someone with a less familiar name a chance at the White House, Jeb Bush is still thinking about running for president. During an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of his father’s presidency, Fox News’s Shannon Bream asked Jeb about his plans for 2016. According to the Washington Post’s account, Bush gave a “rambling answer” that included a promise to make a decision about whether he would run by the end of the year.
The younger Bush brother has downright hippie-ish standards for the race he’d be willing to enter: He said that he would only run if he could do so “with a hopeful, optimistic message, hopefully with enough detail to give people a sense that it’s not just idle words and not get back into the vortex of the mud fight…In my case, that means can one do it joyfully without being tied to all the convention of the here and now?” Later, he insisted, “It turns out that not running has generated more interest than if I said I was running. It’s kind of weird. I’m not that smart, I promise you, it just kind of happened that way.” Of course, the very best way to generate interest is to hedge, which now seems to be Bush’s official strategy.
