Jeb Bush as US Senator?

Now that Mel Martinez is not running for reelection for his US Senate seat from Florida, a familiar name has cropped up as considering a run for the seat, He is former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the younger brother of the current President.

So far former Governor Jeb Bush is simply testing the waters, gauging how such a candidacy would be received. But the possibility of another politician named Bush running for a public office has tongues wagging and not just in Florida.

The conventional wisdom is that a Jeb Bush run for the Senate would be somewhat quixotic, considering the low approval numbers that President George W. Bush has as he leaves the Presidency. But a close examination suggests that the situation is not so cut and dried as all that.

Jeb Bush remains very popular, not only with the voters of Florida but with the Republican base. Jeb Bush left office in 2006 with an approval rating in the 60s. Jeb Bush is seen as not having compromised his conservatism as his brother George W. Bush has been seen to have done. He also has political ties to the Hispanic community, due to his marriage and his political history in dealing with Florida's Cuban-American community.

Baring any unexpected developments, Jeb Bush would seem to be all but certain to win election to the US Senate. 2010, in any case, is likely to be a better Republican year than the previous two election years, due to the tendency of the party out of power to prosper in the first midterm of a new administration.

Once in the Senate, Jeb Bush would almost certainly automatically become a national political figure, due to his successful terms as Governor of Florida and, of course, his last name. Jeb Bush would have an ample opportunity to advance a conservative agenda in the last half of the Presidential term of Barack Obama.

Could the Senate prove to be a springboard for even higher office for Jeb Bush. It is unlikely that he will run for President in 2012. Two years in the Senate and being the second Republican named Bush to run for President in a dozen years may just be too much. But 2016 or even 2020 would be possibilities. Jeb Bush would be sixty seven in 2020, two years younger than Ronald Reagan when he ran in 1980.

As odd as it might be, the Bush Dynasty, which began with Senator Prescott Bush, continued with Congressman, Vice President, and then President George H. W. Bush, and continued with Governor and then President George W. Bush may well continued with Governor, then Senator, then perhaps President Jeb Bush. And Jeb Bush also has a son, George P. Bush, would might also have political ambitions.

Source: Jeb Bush For Florida Senate?, Brian Montopoli, CBS News, December 3rd, 2008