Jeb Bush didn’t back down Friday as he faced skeptical conservatives, staunchly defending his stands on immigration and education policy while pointing to his record as a tax-slashing governor as proof of his conservative bona fides.
The former Florida governor’s appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference served as a reminder of his overall challenge and strategy: working to keep conservatives from rebelling and rallying behind a strong alternative for the Republican presidential nomination but not giving up the positions that could help him in a general election battle with likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Bush started down that path with his 26-minute appearance at the conservative meeting, aided by a boisterous crowd of supporters who drowned out the occasional jeer. Electing to take questions from Fox News’ Sean Hannity rather than deliver prepared remarks, Bush didn’t retreat from any of the stances that have made many conservatives wary of his possible candidacy.
Instead, he urged his critics to consider him as a “second choice” and called on Republicans to broaden their tent.
There are a lot of conservatives who “don’t know that they’re conservative,” he said. “If we share our enthusiasm, love for our country and believe in our philosophy, we will be able to get Latinos and young people and other people that we need to win.”
Bush’s appearance at the meeting was more chaotic than the others. A Georgia man dressed as one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence staged a walkout to protest Bush’s appearance, countered by dozens of supporters sporting red “Jeb! ’16” stickers who filed into the ballroom.
“That was raucous and wild and I loved it,” Bush later told a gathering of supporters. He promised an optimistic campaign if he runs, and said the party needed to “not just unite a conservative party, we also need to reach out to people that haven’t been asked in a while. Young people, Hispanics, African-Americans. We should be taking this case everywhere we can.”
Though Bush has proved a formidable fundraiser, secured a raft of weighty advisers and landed impressive hires in key primary states, conservatives – who play an outsized role in many states – remain wary of his support for the Common Core educational standards and for a path to legal status for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Critics view Common Core as a federal intrusion into what they regard as a local function. But Bush defended the standards while criticizing the Obama administration as meddling unnecessarily.
He touted his education record in Tallahassee, claiming the state has more school choice – public and private – than any other state.
“It’s a record of accomplishment, of getting things done,” Bush said of his tenure as Florida’s governor from 1999 to 2007. He boasted of slashing spending and leaving his successor with $9.5 billion in reserves.
“They called me Veto Corleone,” he said, a reference to the nickname he acquired after slashing lawmakers’ pet projects from the state budget.
Bush also wouldn’t relent on immigration. He supports a path to legal status for immigrants in the U.S. illegally, a position unpopular with conference attendees, who consider it amnesty.
“The simple fact is there is not a plan to deport 11 million people,” Bush said. “We should give them a path to legal status where they work, they don’t get government benefits, they learn English and make a contribution to our society.”
He noted that his support for a path to legalization doesn’t preclude securing the border: “Let’s do it, man,” he told Hannity. “Let’s control the border.”
He defended as “pro-life” his role in the Terri Schiavo case and in passing a law in 2003 – later struck down as unconstitutional – that ordered doctors to reinsert a feeding tube into the comatose woman six days after it had been removed under court order.
“The most vulnerable in our society should be at the front of the line. They should receive our love and protection,” he said.
He confirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage, telling Hannity he believes in “traditional marriage.”
And he walked the line on marijuana, saying he opposes legalization but thinks “states ought to have that right to do it.”
Bush’s challenge was apparent well before he took the stage. He and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie were lustily booed when Hannity asked the audience to cheer for the candidates they liked best.
But Bush told the skeptics he was “marking ’em down as neutral, and I want to be your second choice.”
In an interview Friday with McClatchy, potential rival Donald Trump refused to say whether he’d support Bush if Bush were the party nominee.
“I’d have to think about that. But I certainly don’t know right now,” the New York real estate developer said.
Trump said Bush would continue to be hurt by his stands on education and immigration.
“I think it’s going to be very hard for him, certainly to get the nomination, and I think it’s going to be hard for him to win the race,” Trump said.
Onstage later, conservative radio host Laura Ingraham spent much of her time rapping Bush as well, securing a round of applause as she asked the crowd “how many of you are skeptical of another Bush term?”
Ingraham lambasted what she said had been a “coronation” by party elites to choose Bush and called on conservative activists to embrace “not a conservative who comes to CPAC to check a box, but a conservative who comes to CPAC because he is a conservative.”
Bush said he’d campaign as his “own man,” but some in the audience said that issues aside, they’d simply had enough of the Bush family.
“I can’t do another Bush in the White House,” said Jenn Feagley, a psychology major at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania who was born half a decade after Bush’s father left office. “How do we make the argument that we don’t need a Clinton dynasty with a Bush dynasty? This is supposed to be a democracy. We need new people with different ideas.”
David Lightman contributed to this report.
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