The Corner

Jeb Out

Jeb Bush said yesterday that he won’t run for president in 2008. Along with Bill Owens of Colorado and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, he’s one of America’s best governors. If he had a different last name, conservatives would be begging him to jump in. As it happens, his last name is a handicap: A lot of Americans, including many conservative Republicans, would oppose him simply because of his family. There is perhaps only one Democratic candidate who could turn Jeb’s surname into an asset: Hillary Clinton. But as of this moment, it doesn’t look like we’ll have Bush vs. Clinton, round 2.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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