Jeb’s mother prescient

Jeb Bush should have listened to his mother.

“We’ve had enough Bushes,” Barbara Bush said nearly three years ago, cautioning against her second son’s presidential candidacy by presciently pronouncing the epitaph for his forthcoming bid.

The subsequent failure by the third Bush seeking the White House, confirmed in Saturday’s disastrous South Carolina showing, stemmed from both the current Republican disdain for establishment politicians and the shortcomings of the former Florida governor as a 2016 presidential candidate.

But it also reflects the historical fact that, as times change, American political dynasties lose the energy that fueled their success. As they once did for such fabled political names as Roosevelt and Kennedy, Americans have lost their enthusiasm for bestowing more leadership on the Bushes.

By electing both the 41st and 43rd presidents, the Bushes achieved what those fabled Democratic families failed to do. When both the son and grandson of Sen. Prescott Bush reached the White House, it marked only the third time in American history that more than one generation of the same family achieved such success.

The high regard for the first helped make the second’s election possible. But the latter’s failures left a legacy of an angry, anti-establishment GOP that contributed to his brother’s subsequent failure. The rise of the tea party and Donald Trump is as much a reaction to the second Bush presidency – the war in Iraq, the Great Recession, federal spending and the financial bailout – as it reflects subsequent antagonism to President Barack Obama.

South Carolina

But shortcomings of candidate and campaign also contributed to the Jeb Bush fiasco that climaxed in South Carolina. Successful senators and governors inevitably find running for president far harder than they imagine, and, for Bush, that was multiplied by the fact he had not sought elective office in 14 years.

Focused more on a general election approach than the primaries, he never figured out how to deal with two issues – immigration and education – on which he was out of sync with the GOP’s rightward thrust. He and his advisers miscalculated the potential impact of a big financial war chest, and created a bifurcated structure in which his most experienced national adviser worked for the super PAC that wasted millions seeking to destroy his rivals.

A strong candidate can sometimes overcome structural weaknesses. But unlike his father and brother, who radiated desire for the presidency, Jeb Bush never gave the impression his heart was in this race. He was tentative at crucial moments in the initial televised debates, helping to solidify Trump’s depiction of him as “low energy.” But like most American dynasties, another generation is always on the horizon. While Bush crowds loved seeing matriarch Barbara boost her son despite initial doubts, they delighted in glimpsing the young man already emerging as the next generation’s standard bearer: Jeb’s son, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

Meanwhile, Americans will be able this year to render a definitive judgment on a potentially different political dynasty, the first person seeking the presidency her spouse once held. As unlikely as that might once have seemed, it’s a strain of dynastic politics that might yet establish its own history.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.